New fuel and additive products boost methanol suitability

Methanol’s cetane number is so low that, alone, it is not suitable as a fuel for compression ignition in traditional combustion engines: pilot fuel is required, but burning methanol with a pilot fuel such as diesel means two distinct supply chains are needed for bunkering.

Australian-based Gane Energy & Resources Pty Ltd has developed an alternative fuel, Gane fuel, which contains methanol, water, and a lubricity additive. Ignition is achieved by the use of dimethyl ether (DME), with the high cetane DME being injected just prior to fuel injection – no extra supply chain required.

The DME is produced onboard by taking a small proportion of the methanol and passing it over a catalyst. It can then be directed to the inlet air of the engine or directly into the combustion chamber, with co-produced water being used by the high-pressure fuel injection system.

The production unit requires a stream of approximately 5% of the Gane fuel. This is vaporized before being sent to a flash vessel to separate the light overheads (predominantly methanol) from heavy bottoms (predominantly water) and a fuel additive).

The overheads are directed to a reactor containing the catalyst where the methanol is converted to DME and water. The output from the reactor goes through a cooling and condensation process to maximize DME percentage in the final product stream which is then cooled to liquid phase and stored in a separate tank as buffer stock which is used for start-up and transient load accommodation.

No modifications are required to the engine for Gane fuel operation, and there are no by-products. Gane claims diesel-like combustion performance with a roughly 80% reduction in NOx, an 80% reduction in particulate mass and 99.5% reduction in particulate number emissions, and no detectable black carbon emissions.

Need for additives

The DME production unit does not require chemical grade methanol and can accommodate high water levels and the presence of heavier species such as a lubricity improver.

The viscosity of methanol is much lower than diesel, but when lubricity improver additives are added, it can help prevents damage to the engine and injectors and ensure protection from wear in the long-term.

Internal combustion engines benefit from lubricity properties that 100% chemical grade methanol may not have. The corrosivity of methanol is also a concern, particularly with copper and steel, due to the presence of soluble chloride ions that can occur in, for example, biomethanol. The ISO’s new methanol bunker fuel standards set specifications for chloride content for grade ‘A’ marine methanol fuel.

Infineum released a methanol lubricity improver additive Infineum B411 this year, and the company claims it achieves diesel-like lubricity with a 500ppm recommended treatment rate. Its performance has been tested during over 1,000 hours of major OEM engine tests which confirms a significant reduction in wear.

Lubricity studies of methanol fuels showed that adding up to 25% water to the fuel increases its viscosity, but this is not enough to achieve the same lubricating performance as diesel. Infineum technologist Frank Simpson presented test results at CIMAC 2025 that demonstrate that Infineum B411 is fully miscible with methanol and methanol/water blends with high water contents, even down to low temperatures of -30^oC. The only cases where the additive caused white precipitation to drop out of the fuel was when the water content was increased to 20% at -30^oC.

Simpson’s studies of steel corrosion in methanol fuels showed that chloride content has a direct impact on the observed corrosion. At 2ppm chloride content, corrosion was observed as many brown spots covering the surfaces of a test rod during a 72-hour test. As chloride content increased to 4ppm and 10ppm, the severity of the corrosion increased. Adding the lubricity additive led to a strong reduction in corrosion.

Infineum is committed to supporting the journey of shippers to net zero and is already supplying the additive to some end-users of methanol. As the methanol supply chain becomes more robust, they are ready to supply the volumes of the additive that will be required across the industry.

Mixing methanol and water

Methanol is the most polar alcohol and has a strong affinity with water. Its overall volume shrinks when water is added, up to a point. After that, shrinkage declines as additional water is added. This shrinkage property increases fuel density compared to what may be otherwise expected.

To learn more about innovations within the field of future marine fuels, click here to see the provisional programme of this year’s Propulsion and Future Fuels event.