Avocet: Not for the Want of Trying

Abstract

In the early 1980s, AECI, the South African subsidiary of the large UK chemical firm, ICI Chemicals and Polymers, invented and patented a fuel additive which it named `Avocet“. The additive is an `ignition improver’ which allows methanol to be used as a fuel in existing diesel engines with a minimum of modifications. AECI were motivated to increase local consumption of methanol made from coal feedstock; coal-derived methanol was being promoted as a fuel in response to the difficulties South Africa then had (as a pariah state) in guaranteeing supplies of imported oil for fuels.Encetalthe name of the fuel mixture of methanol and Avocet, burns cleanly, producing low amounts of pollutant gases (Nitrous Oxide and Carbon Monoxide) and particulates in a vehicle’s exhaust. Avocet (in Encetal) can thus be seen as a chemical that has positive environmental benefits - a `green innovation’.