Project Info
Grade Category: 7-9
Team size: 1
Subject area: Earth, Energy and Environmental
Project type: Experimental
Language: English
Summary
Ethanol has the potential to replace current pure petroleum based fuels running our vehicles. Petroleum based fuels are non-renewable and pollute the environment, contributing to global warming. Unlike petroleum based fuels, ethanol is less polluting, and is renewable. The problem around ethanol is: common people do not know about it, and many fuel producers would prefer fuel grade and fuel economy over environmental cleanliness. I wanted to know if ethanol really did have a lower fuel grade than gasoline and diesel. I designed three experiments to test ethanol (E95), diesel and gasoline for fuel grade or burn duration, emission levels, and energy content in Btu (British Thermal Units). I hypothesized that ethanol would burn the least, but it would have the highest energy content (Btu) and lowest emissions. My research and experimentation proved two of my hypotheses correct and one semi-correct. As I had hypothesized, ethanol had the cleanliest burn as indicated by lowest emissions of CO2, CO and NH3 and it also had highest Btu. However, my burn duration experiment proved my hypothesis semi-correct where ethanol burned longer than gasoline but shorter than diesel, which I had not expected. My results indicated that ethanol is a better fuel than conventional fuels.
Idea
The news of global warming and climate change has always interested me ever since I learned about it from my grade two teacher on the Earth day. I have learned that one of the major causes of global warming is emissions from fuels used to run our vehicles. I wanted to do this project, because I heard a lot of controversy on the news about ethanol as an alternative fuel. I decided to research a bit on ethanol, and looked on the internet. After reading about ethanol and the continuing controversy associated with it, I decided to do this project to know for myself whether ethanol was a “Reality or green pipedream”—as CTV quote on the news.
Special skills
The skill used to build this project was CSS (Cascading Style Sheet).
Software
Adobe Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
Adobe Photoshop CS2
Microsoft Office 2003 Professional
Hardware
CDU 440 Carbon Dioxide Monitor
iTX Multi-gas Monitor
HP M307 Photosmart Camera
Awards
Won First place in Junior Earth and Environmental Science Category– Sponsored by AREVA Resources at Saskatoon Regional Science Fair, April 2007
Previous projects
[I] Synchrotron: A super microscope
http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2005/shar5a0/public_html/
by Aseem Sharma
[II] The secrets of life
http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2004/mcgo4s0/public_html/
by An-qi Dong, Madeleine Hucl, Shaquille McGonigle, Louis Reed-Wood, and Aseem Sharma