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Topic: Applications of Supersaturated Solutions  (Read 3401 times)

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Offline Maximumnerd

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Applications of Supersaturated Solutions
« on: March 19, 2013, 01:46:16 AM »
This isn't an academic question, rather an automotive one. Please forgive me if I've posted in the wrong section. It doesn't have a definite answer. So my father and I were brainstorming about running our alcohol burning 302 in the northern United States. It gets cold, and ethanol doesn't like to vaporize nicely in the cold. He posed me with the question what could we do about it? It's a problem that has been solved in other ways, but I had a thought my own. Some use the same electric block heaters that diesels use, and others have a small tank of gasoline they start with and run on until the engine is warm. Both of these methods work fine, but I wondered if you couldn't use some kind of supersaturated solution. My chemistry knowledge is limited to 3/4 of a semester in college (I haven't even finished it yet) so please forgive me if my ideas aren't well founded. Mt thought is you could put the solution in a container under the intake manifold and at least heat up the engine's first gulp of air, but would the engine heat from running be enough to reliquify the crystals? The things I guess I want to know are;
1) What things crystallize exothermically out of a supersaturated solution and can be reliquified with heat?
2) Do any of these get hotter than the sodium acetate hand warmers?
3) Do any of them release energy at a higher temperature than they liquefy at just faster rate?
4) What does anyone think of my idea, I guess. Is it plausible?

Offline billnotgatez

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Re: Applications of Supersaturated Solutions
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2013, 03:57:49 PM »
Would you have to replace the crystals as they are used up?

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