Ed Clavel wrote: > I could be wrong. But I believe Alcohol has a affinity for water so > shouldn't the water quantity in the test tube reduce.
Ed, When you have a measured (and marked) amount of water in the tube, then add fuel, put on the stopper and shake it: 1. The alcohol does have an affinity for the water. But the alcohol can't stay in solution with the gasoline in the presence of water, so 2. The alcohol leaves the gasoline and goes into solution with the water. 3. Since the water/alcohol solution looks just like water, it looks like the quantity of water in the bottle INCREASED. That increase is the amount of alcohol that came out of the gasoline and 4. That's how you tell if there was alcohol mixed with the fuel: If the apparent quantity of "water" changes, there was alcohol in the fuel. http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/alcohol_test.htm (I know they aren't such logical points but it avoided having an inordinately, hugely, long sentence. :-) ) Ed Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/index.htm East Peoria, Illinois ed -at- edbur???khead.??com (remove the ? marks and change -at- to @)
