Fuels may be thought of as substances that will combust air to produce heat energy. The earliest fuels used by humans were wood, charcoal and peat, but today the commonly used fuels are coal, petroleum and natural gas. Fuels vary in their suitability for different purposes. Most fuels release energy by reacting with oxygen. (Gcsescience.com, 2015)
To select a fuel appropriate to a particular application, aspects such as safety and heat of combustion should be considered.
Hydrocarbons are simple organic compounds containing only hydrogen and carbon. The four general groups of Hydrocarbons are:
• Alkanes,
• Alkenes,
• Alkynes, and
• Aromatics
(Chemwiki.ucdavis.edu, 2015)
Pentane, Propane-1-ol and Propane-2-ol are all part of …show more content…
Dispersion also increases as the molecular weight increases.
Alkane’s burn in air to form Carbon dioxide and water, in doing so they also liberate large amounts of heat (and light).
There are two types of reactions, exothermic reactions and endothermic reactions. Reactions that release heat are called exothermic reactions. Exothermic reactions feel hot because they are giving heat to you.
Burning fuels gives out heat and is therefore an exothermic …show more content…
For exothermic reactions, the change in enthalpy is positive, for endothermic reactions, the change in enthalpy is negative.
The flash point of a substance is the temperature at and above which a liquid gives off enough flammable vapour to form a mixture with air that can be ignited by contact with a hot surface, spark, or flame. Lower the flash point, greater the fire hazard. (BusinessDictionary.com, 2015)
The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the vapour pressure is large enough that bubbles form inside the body of the liquid. Once the liquid starts to boil, the temperature remains constant until all of the liquid has been converted to a gas. (Chemed.chem.purdue.edu, 2015)
Primary alcohols are alcohols in which the carbon that carries the –OH group is only attached to one alkyl group.
An alkyl is a functional group of an organic chemical that contains only carbon and hydrogen atoms, which are arranged in a chain. (Greenfacts.org, 2015)
An octane rating is a rating given to fuels that measures its ability to resist pinging or