Introduction:

Generally speaking alternative fuels are nothing but merely alternatives to the conventional fuels presently used by human beings. These fuels will work in exactly the same way in which conventional fuels work but will slightly differ in the way in they are stored and dispensed but the desired net effect will be the same as brought about by their conventional counterparts. With the massive progression in the field of consumer satisfaction the need seem to amounting in a very fast manner. To curb this, solutions in various forms are being sought out. 0ne such solution is the use of alternative fuels instead of the conventional counterparts. In the present scenario with demand supply curve getting steeper and the inherent natural resources ending up fast we have in fact no choice but to switch on to alternate sources of energy. Now more than a matter of choice it has become mandatory to develop such a fuel. The conventional hydrocarbon fuel has average life expectancy of around 20 yrs. After this period either the sources will exhaust or they will go out of reach of the common man. Issues like global warming, greenhouse effect, acid rain, depletion of ozone layer, various health hazards need a solution and the solution lies in the use of alternative fuels. Alternative fuels by nature are non-polluting, biodegradable and also derived from renewable sources of energy. Another benefit of using alternative fuels is the wide range of such fuels coming up every day. This will tend to reduce the pressure on a single fuel but people across the globe will choose according to their suitability any one or more of the options. Automakers these days are coming up with what are called flex-fuel vehicles. These vehicles will consist of a fuel detector which will sense the fuel in the tank, which can be pure alternative fuel or a mixture of former and conventional fuel. The fuel detector will in turn the engine computer to adjust the air fuel ratio for combustion. Such vehicles will of great advantage as you can always use conventional fuel when and where the alternative fuel is not available and when you get around one you can always top it off with A.F. these vehicles are presently available in the first world countries at no extra cost when compared to their conventional counterparts. Here we discuss the properties of certain such fuels. These fuels are not of the kind which would get exhausted in the near future, they are unlimited in content but due to their inherent properties of being difficult to be put into use or even be generated have made the human beings seek out the presently used conventional fuels.

1.

METHANOL

Methanol (CH3OH) is an alcohol fuel. The alternative Methanol fuel currently being used is M-85. in the future neat Methanol, or M-100, may also be used. Methanol is also made into ether, MTBE, which is blended with gasoline to enhance octane and to create oxygenated gasoline. Chemical properties: as engine fuels, ethanol & methanol have similar chemical & physical characteristics. Methanol is methane with one H2 molecule replaced by hydroxyl radical (OH). Production: Methanol is pre dominantly produced by steam reforming of natural gas to create a synthesis gas, which is then fed into a reactor vessel in the presence of a catalyst to produce Methanol and water vapour. Although variety of feedstocks other than natural gas can and have been used, todays economics favour natural gas. Synthesis gas refers to combination of CO & H2. While a large amount of synthesis gas is used to make Methanol, most synthesis gas is used to make NH3 plants. The synthesis gas is fed into another reactor vessel under high temp and pressures, where CO& H2 are combined in the presence of catalyst to produce Methanol. Finally, the reactor product is distilled to purify and separate the Methanol from reactor effluent. Advantages: Alcohol fuels like M-85 are perhaps the most transparent alternative fuel to the user, i.e., they are the least distinguishable from gasoline in how you buy and use them , which should ease acceptance. The fuel system of a car or truck only needs to be slightly changed (somewhat different materials, bigger fuel injectors, and a fuel composition sensor) in order for it to run on M-85, and recently automakers have been offering M-85 vehicles at no extra cost over their gasoline counterparts ( or even for slightly less money) though at present automakers seem to be more interested in eathanol (E-85). And perhaps best of all, modern M-85 vehicles are flex-fuel vehicles, which means that any mixture of M-85 and gasoline in the fuel tank can be used by the engine; a fuel-composition sensor tells the engine computer what percentage of methanol is in the fuel, and it adjusts the injectors and ignition accordingly. Thus an M-85 vehicle is a gasoline vehicle if M-85 is not available, but you can top it off with M-85 when ever you get back into an area where it can be found, and you dont have to carry (and pay for!) two separate fuel systems to do this. Disadvantages:

Methanol is more corrosive than gasoline (though it is less toxic and not carcinogenic); this is why an automaker needs to change some of the materials in the fuel handling systems of both the vehicle and the refueling station to materials that can withstand attack by the fuel. Special oil additives are necessary in order to protect the engine. Also, because the mixture of air to fuel is much richer than gasoline, there is more liquid fuel available to wash oil off of cylinder walls during a cold start. The richer fuel/air mixture needed by Methanol also mans that the give volume of gasoline will take you about 70% farther than the same tank full of M-85; most automakers have at least partially compensated for this by putting a larger fuel tank in their M-85 vehicles. And the reason that Methanol is most commonly used n a mixture with 15% gasoline is to correct for two disadvantages of pure Methanol. One is that a Methanol flame is colourless, so gasoline is added to give the flame some colour so rescuers can tell if a fire is present should an M-85 vehicle get into a crash. The other is that Methanol, being the pure chemical compound has a single boiling point so that it can cause cold start problems in cold weather, or vapour lock in hot. Gasoline, being a mixture of compounds with different boiling points, always has some component that want to stay liquid and some that want to vaporize at a give temperature, so adding it to Methanol confers this flexibility on the M-85 mixture. Indeed, some manufacturers recommend mixing additional gasoline with M-85 in very cold weather.

BIODIESEL Biodiesel (mono alkyl esters) is a cleaner-burning diesel replacement fuel made from natural renewable sources such as vegetable oils. Justb like petroleum diesel,biodiesel operates in combustion-ignition engines. Essentially no engine modifications are required,and biodiesel maintains the pay load capacity and range of diesel. The use of biodiesel in a conventional diesel engine results in substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons,CO,SO4,polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and particulate matter.Emmisssions of nitrogen oxides are either slightly reduced or slightly increased depending on the duty cycle and testing methods. The use of biodiesel decreases the solid carbon fractions of particulate matter(since the O2 in biodiesel enablesd more complete combustion of CO2), eliminates the sulphate fraction (as there is no sulphur in the fuel), while the soluble or hydrocarbon fraction stays the same or is increased. Therefore,biodiesel works well with new technologies such as catalysts(which reduces the soluble fraction of diesel particulate but nt the solid carbon fraction),particulate traps,and exhauts gas recirculation (potentially longer engine life due to less carbon ). Chemical properties: biodiesel has physical properties very similar to conventional diesel . emission properties,however,are beter for biodiesel than for conventional diesel.below are the physical characteristics of biodiesel Specific gravity 0.88 Viscosity@20`C(centistokes) 7.5 Cetane index 49 Cold filter plugging point(`C) -12

 Net heating value(KJ/l)

3330

Production: Biodiesel fuel can be made from new or used vegetable oils and animal fats. It is made from domestic renewable resources. It is biodegradable, requires minimal engine modification when used either as blending component or as is, and is cleaner burning than the diesel it replaces. Vegetable oils can be chemically reacted with an alcohol (methanol is the usual choice) to produce chemical compounds known as esters. Biodiesel is the name given to these esters when they are intended for use as fuel.Glycerol (used in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics , among other markets) is produced as a co-product. Currently biodieseel is produced by a process called transesterification.the vegetable oil (or animal fat ) is first filtered, then processed with alkali to remove free fatty acids.it is then mixed with an alcohol(usually methanol)and a catalyst(usually sodium or potassium hydroxide). The oils triglycerides react to form esters and glycerol, which are then seperated from each other and purified. Advantages: As note above, B-20 can be stored and dispensed in exactly the same manner as petroleum diesel fuel; in addition, diesel-powered vehicles require no modification at all to run on b-20 or even higher blends. Thus any diesel-powered truck or bus is, potentially, already an alternative-fueled vehicle! Since Biodiesel is not a fossil fuel, as noted above it can cut green house-gas emissions as well as ordinary pollutants (particularly soot) by displacing petroleum-diesel fuel. Disadvantages: The main disadvantage of B-20, like that of M-85 is fuel cost. However since it requires no changes in hardware (vehicle or refueling or retraining of mechanics and users, study have shown that it could be the most cost effective way for some fleets to meet clean-air requirement (compressed natural gas cuts fuel and maintenance cost, but vehicles must be replaced or converted to use it, and mechanics must be retrained, which may tip the balance).

2.

ELECTRIC FUEL: Electricity is unique among alternative fuels in that mechanical power is derived directly from it, whereas other alternative fuels release stored chemical energy through combustion to provide mechanical power. Motive power is produced from electricity by an electric motor. Electricity used to power vehicles is commonly provided by batteries, but fuel cells are also being explored. Batteries are energy storage devices, but unlike batteries, fuel cells convert chemical energy to electricity. A large number of various types of batteries are being tested for use in EVs. Some of technologies being used or evaluated include lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, nickel-iron, nickel-zinc,

nickel-metal hydride, sodium-sulphur, sodium-nickel chloride, zinc-bromine, lithium, zinc-air and aluminum-air. Production: Electricity is produced from power plants located throughout the country, transmitted to substations through high voltage transmission systems, stepped lower voltages, and carried to homes and businesses through distribution systems. Some utilities have developed special time-of-use meter and off-peak electric rates to separately monitor EV electric usage from the home and provide incentives to recharge at night when the over all load is down. Advantages: Electric vehicles have the potential to be by far the cleanest means of transportation, and even in the near terms it takes a very advanced natural-gas-powered vehicle like Honda Civic GX to give them a run for their money in terms of low pollution. The reason is twofold. First, electric generators and motors are very efficient; even accounting for losses in producing electricity from some fuel, transmitting it over power lines, recharging a battery with it, and feeding it out of the battery to the motor, you still can go a lot farther by burning a given amount of to general electricity for an electric car than by using it directly in internal combustion engine. Moreover, the same electric motors that expends energy to speed up a vehicle can be run as a generator to absorb energy and slow down the vehicle: this is called the regenerative braking, and it allows the energy to be recovered and put back into the battery that, in a conventional vehicle, simply gets washed as heat in the brakes. Thus, to go a give distance, you will burn a lot less fuel and generate a lot less pollution if you use it to generate electricity for an electric vehicle than if you use it in a conventional internal-combustion powertrain. Secondly, electricity generation is done in the cleanest possible manner for a give fuel, and power utilities keep their generators in top condition as a matter of course. It is true that charging an electric vehicle from the power mix in some parts of the country results in replacing gasoline in car with coal in powerplants, which generally burn dirtier, as the power sources; however, modern coal burning power plants are a lot cleaner than they used to be , and accounting for the efficiency with which the energy is used, you still come out ahead in almost al pollutants. Moreover, electric generation is getting cleaner all the time: as time goes on, older, dirtier generating plants are being taken out of service and replaced with newer, cleaner ones, or even with pollution free wind and solar generators. Thus an electric car will get cleaner over time as the powerplants from which it gets its energy are upgraded, and it can switch to fully renewable energy sources without a hiccup as they come on line; by contrast, a conventional car, or even a car that runs on natural gas, methanol, or another alternative fuel, will get dirtier overtime as its catalytic converter and other emission-control features age. Electric vehicles are by nature low maintenance, and their simplicity (an electric motor has one moving part, the rotor, in contrast to so many in an internal combustion engine?) means that, when produced in large numbers their cost should low as compared to other vehicles. Disadvantages:

The biggest real disadvantage if electric vehicles, at present, is their higher price; even today, though, if you need a vehicle to do a lot of stop an go driving an idling, which wastes a lot of fuel and is very hard on an internal combustion engine, you can save enough in fuel and repairs to make an electric vehicle pay for itself even without the substantial tax credits and other subsidies that are available. Any way, electric vehicles today are built in extremely small numbers say a few hundreds or thousands, per yearso economies of scale have not even begun to come into play to bring their prices down, which should start in the near future. The biggest perceived disadvantage of electric vehicle is their range. Modern electric vrehicles have ranges between recharges or perhaps 60 to 90 miles,which wont get you very far down the the interstate but this is not a big disadvantage as not many people drive out this much distance very often. COMPRESSED NATURAL GAS (CNG): Fuel sources: Natural gas is, well, natural gasthe same stuff that heats your stove or your house it is largely produced domestically in the United states; it can be imported through pipe lines or as cryogenic (super cold) liquid on special tanker ships, but because this is a lot harder than pouring crude or refined oil into a tanker or a pipeline , we havent built up a import dependency for natural gas as we have for petroleum. Advantages: CNG is like LPG in many ways, only more so. It is very easy on the engine giving longer service life and lower maintenance costs. CNG is the least expensive alternative fuel (except electricity) when you compare equal amounts of fuel energy. Because there is a predictable and huge demand for natural gas from domestic, industrial, and utility users, there is a large buffering effect against price fluctuations. The high octane rating of natural gas allows the CNG powered Honda civic GX to use a very high compression ratio and produce more power than stock gasoline versions. As with LPG, because the fuel tanks have to withstand such enormous internal pressures they are incredibly tough, with good results for safety. In addition, because natural gas is lighter than air and has very narrow flammability limits, if a leak develops it is very likely that the fuel will dissipate harmlessly into the air without causing a danger of ignition or explosion. Natural gas has, over the course of 1990s,proven to be the most effective fuel for reducing emissions in a internal combustion engines. There are now a few a gasoline powered cars that run cleaner than the conventional fuel cars, but it took 5 yrs to gasoline to catch up (in much smaller engines) and in the mean time natural-gasvehicle emissions have continued to plummet. Disadvantages: The tanks are quite bulky and heavy, about three times more so than LPG tanks (have a look at the older vehicles the tanks are half-inch thick aluminum clad with reinforced fiberglass) though modern composite technology is starting to be used to cut weight and cost (as on the Honda civic GX). Range is significantly less than for a equivalent gasoline vehicle unless you really go overboard adding extra fuel tanks! And again, mostly because of the heavy duty tanks, there is currently a large price premium for a CNG vehicle compared to a gasoline version .the fuel and maintenance costs can be enough cheaper, however, in a high mileage application like transit bus, a taxi, or a shuttle van, that this will repay the higher initial purchase price overtime. Finally, the refueling infrastructure is still growing, as noted above.

LIQUEFIED PETROLEUM GAS (LPG);

LPG as the name suggests is partly a bi product of petroleum refining; nationwide only about 45% of LPG comes from petroleum refining, and the rest from natural gas processing. It consists of hydrocarbons that are vapors , rather than liquids , at normal temperatures and pressures but which turn liquid at moderate pressures ;its main constituent is propane , and it is sometimes referred to by the name . Advantages: Because its so widely available LPG is the least alternative of alternative fuels if alternative denotes inconvenience, and most of the alternative fuel used in the country is LPG. In order to liquefy the fuel, it is stored in sturdy tanks at about 20 times atmospheric pressure since these are much tougher than typical sheet metal or plastic gasoline tanks, and since they have a built in shut of valve to seal the tank if the fuel lines start leaking, LPG is safer than gasoline. It is also somewhat cheaper than gasoline in most places, most of the time, when you compare the price of a gallon of gasoline with the price of the somewhat larger volume of; LPG needed to drive the same distance. Because LPG enters the engine as vapor, it doesnt wash off cylinder walls or dilute the oil when the engine is cold, and it also doesnt put carbon particles and sulfuric acid into the oil. Thus an engine that runs on propane can expect a longer service life and low maintenance costs. (incoming liquid gasoline cools the combustion chamber and valves as it vaporizes, and you might expect, for example, that you need a valve job more often on a LPG-burning engine because the gaseous fuel doesnt give this cooling effect; however, modern valve and valve seat materials ,designed for unleaded gasoline, dont have problems with dry fuel. More recently, direct injection of LPG in the liquid state, with attendant cooling effect as well as improved emissions control, is being tested.) Its high octane rating (around 105) means that power output and/or fuel efficiency can be increased, without causing detonation (knocking), in a vehicle that isnt required to run on gasoline as well. Disadvantages

CONCLUSION There is the resonant phrase that the need of a man is unending, it is very evident from the discussion on the Alternate fuels that there are many around us and that a great deal of them are to come up. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages and depending on them we have a criteria for selection. The growing need for cheaper and abundant resources or fuels as per this topic is the impetus for newer research and development. It is to be seen that in the near future many such advancements will take place in this extremely innovative direction. We can surely expect for a much greener and safer future provided there is a full blown attempt from all directions.