Renewable oxygenates such as alcohols are used increasingly as fossil fuel blends or substitutes, directly influencing alkoxide corrosion of light metals in fuel-carrying vehicle components specially at elevated temperatures.
Due to its spontaneous character and tremendously high material degradation rates after initiation, new approaches capable of localized and detailed measurements are needed with respective high-resolution test equipment. This work showcases a novel high pressure-temperature micro-reactor which is able to conduct measurements with high sensitivity in order to assess exact corrosion initiation times and reaction rates at elevated temperatures. A study on the corrosion reaction of commercially pure aluminium in anhydrous ethanol has been conducted using the new device including fuel blend variations. First results subsequently show the dependance of corrosion initiation and kinetics on the metal surface roughness along with presence of foreign particles. With decreasing surface roughness an exponential rise in the initiation times is observed. Further investigation also highlights the role of surface embedded grinding source particles (SiC) as surface defect points for corrosion initiation. Lastly, varying fuel alcohol content into higher proportions heavily influences the passivation potential of water present in the fuel blends.  Lastly, the results can be effectively be transferred onto micro scale simulation models.