Kerosene and ethanol ?

Question

Can the ethanol uses in place of kerosene, for example in rockets or airplane turbine?

Answer 1

It would be easier to use gasoline in those engines, and they dont for a number of reasons.  Ethanol is kind of like gasoline, and the amount of engineering needed to replace gasoline with ethanol is very small compared to the amount of effort required to replace kerosene.  Kerosene has more energy per gallon than gasoline.  Ethanol has less.

Kerosene has a much lower autoignition temperature than gasoline, but ethanol has a higher autoignition temperature.  Kerosene is not at all corrosive to metals, gasoline is not very corrosive, ethanol is quite corrosive, especially to sharp points, like the blades of a turbine.

Kerosene is relatively stable and does not explode easily.  Ethanol explodes very easily.  

All of this means ethanol is not suited to the tasks you mentioned.

That's OK.  There is plenty of room for growth in the automotive market.

Answer 2

some of the first rockets use alcohol.  Kerosene has 165% (11,500 versus 19,000 BTU/pound) more energy per pound and when going up, weight is everything.

Answer 3

yes it can be, but again you still have the same issues as with replacing gasoline with ethanol, and that is that alcohol has less energy potential than kerosene does.