Ammonia is a molecule with HUGE dipole movement. This is why it is usually found in the form of NH4+ in aqueous solutions (including our own body, generated by glutaminase in the kidney)
The solubility of NH3 in ethanol should be ok;
Going back to the basics, we see that the nitrogen in ammonia has an electron pair that is available for a hydrogen bonding with the hydrogen atom in the hydroxyl group of the ethanol (and methanol).
Regarding the solubility of ammonia in gasoline:
The typical composition of gasoline hydrocarbons (% volume) is as follows: 4-8% alkanes; 2-5%
alkenes; 25-40% isoalkanes; 3-7% cycloalkanes; l-4% cycloalkenes; and 20-50% total aromatics
(0.5-2.5% benzene) (IARC 1989).
Based on that I would not expect ammonia to be soluble in gasoline ... I mean I would not expect that this mixture would have any polar groups that would make hydrogen available for bonding ... but then again it has been more 14 years since I last took organic and physical chemisty.
I tried the NIST solubility database (
http://srdata.nist.gov/solubility/) and I got no hits so it seems that no one has tried this before
.
ammonia-guy wrote: Ethanol from corn, ammonia from wind.
Bad idea ... ethanol from corn has an EROEI of 1.2-1.34 documented by multiple studies in the US and an EROEI of 4 in a
European study (likely reflecting agricultural practises in the US and even the difference in distances from farm to industrial plant). I hope that perennial plants that can also double as carbon sequestration/soil remediation measures as discussed
here . Ethanol derived from switchgrass (aka "solar panel of the prairies") has a much higher holistic EROEI (4.4) compared to corn ethanol and
room for improvement of this number. Corn ethanol seems to be a dead end: we can only optimize industrial agriculture practises but extracting the ETOH is a well known (and optimized) process.
In any case if fuel mixes i.e. ethanol from plants, methanol from wood and even ammonia (even though the compound might be better utilized in agriculture, still have my doubts inspite of my starting this thread) then both ICEs and fuel cells are viable as engines for road transportation. But if we could "kill" the majority of the cars AND improve their mileage then biofuels alone would be able to meet the demand (at least in the US and quite likely in Europe) without problems.
"Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.