| Gallery, Projects and General > How do I?? |
| Methanol and metal comparability. |
| (1/7) > >> |
| dawesy:
Thought I'd ask here as there's a wealth of knowledge. I run a water/methanol injection system on my modified MR2 to aid inlet charge cooling and knock prevention. I want to make a new tank for it and I was going to make one from aluminium but someone told me its a bad idea as methanol reacts with aluminium and can explode. Now I've seen a few tanks made from alloy used for just this purpose but after reading there seems to be some evidence to support this claim. I decided to make one from stainless but it's obviously more expensive. Is aluminium suitable for this application or are there any other materials I could use? Thanks in advance. |
| John Rudd:
When I worked at Centrica Storage gas terminal, we stored methanol in a mild steel tank some 13 metres high....good enough for them..... |
| dawesy:
With the water mix it might get a bit rusty though. |
| Lew_Merrick_PE:
Lee, I am unaware of any problems with methanol/aluminum interactions. Aluminum parts (nearly all 7075 or 2024 alloys) used in medical devices are routinely ultrasonically cleaned in methanol before being washed off with water & detergent in hospitals (methanol being much less expensive or restricted than ethanol -- the preferred media). Methanol is also a significant ingredient in napalm -- which is "deployed" using (mostly) aluminum components. The items referred to above would be (chromic or sulfuric) anodized -- which may be important. I have never run into issues regarding methanol, but I rarely work with such applications. |
| DavidA:
I have Methanol stored in 1 gallon aluminium containers for use in my bio diesel process for years . I have never had a problem. The containers are only about 10 thou thick but so far no leakage. Dave. |
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