Gasoline Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This Gasoline Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

Gasoline is an organic compound found in nature that is used to fuel gasoline engines. It is called petrol in Great Britain, or by other names such as benzene in other languages. Throughout the 20th century, the exploration and development of the global oil industry was a quest for oil that was used for refining into gasoline. Prior to about 1900, the primary product made from refined oil was kerosene. It was soon discovered that gasoline was a lower temperature distillate than kerosene – it required less refracting to be extracted. The invention and application of the gasoline engine to automobiles, boats, airplanes, and other machines stimulated the refining of gasoline. Henry Ford’s development of the Model T and the assembly line to build them in vast numbers at affordable prices for working-class people provided inexpensive transportation for millions. Demand for gasoline quickly exceeded kerosene demand, creating a global quest for oil and a vast system of gasoline supplies to individual automobile driver purchases.

Internal combustion gasoline engines are a type of heat engine. They use energy at high temperature to do work. Much of the heat is then dumped so that the engine can continue to work. The gasoline engine uses the Otto cycle, which is named after Nikolaus Otto, to mix gasoline vapor and air in a cylinder-shaped chamber. The vapor and air mixture is compressed. A piston uses an adiabatic compression stroke to squeeze the air and gasoline into an explosive condition. However, if the gasoline is of good quality, an explosion will not occur spontaneously. Instead, a spark plug will be used to ignite the compressed mixture. The explosion inside of the cylindrical chamber will create a very hot pressurized gas that will push the piston out in a stroke that will turn a crankshaft to accomplish work. The octane rating measures the resistance of the gasoline to premature ignition.

Gasoline is used in great quantities. Individual cars use tons every year. The exploded mixture of air and gasoline is expelled from the automobile in the form of gas. Much of the waste gas is carbon dioxide. However, there are many other compounds in the exhaust fumes. These tons of gasoline fumes pollute the atmosphere and the in various atmospheric conditions create smog. There are many health problems caused by these fumes, including a great increase in asthma. Chemically, gasoline is C8H14 plus other radicals that can or may be attached. It can be manufactured from anything containing carbon and hydrogen. These forms of gasoline are synthetic. It is also possible to obtain it from oil-bearing shale deposits and tar sands. Gasoline is found with the natural gas that accompanies petroleum. Natural gasoline is usually called casinghead gasoline, and is mixed with the enormous quantities of gasoline manufactured in oil refineries. Gasoline, depending upon the quality of the crude oil being refined, and many other products will come from the refracting process. These include gases, kerosene, diesel fuel, and a variety of oils, waxes, and tars. In addition, contaminants such as sulfur and metals may also be produced.

The gasoline sold commercially in the United States and around the world is gasoline plus other hydrocarbons. There are more than 25 compounds that are mixed with gasoline to make different kinds of fuels. Gasoline burns differently in different types of engines. Each engine’s pistons have different compression and firing characteristics. Highcompression engines and low compression engines will experience “knocking” or “pinging” from premature firing if the gasoline and the air mixture are not suited for that type of engine. The result is that gasoline for automobiles would not be the best fuel for boats, airplanes, or other gasoline-using engines. Knocking occurs in an engine when the gasoline vapors and air in the cylinders explodes spontaneously rather than burning at a uniform rate. When knocking occurs, it causes a loss of power in the engine. Using a gasoline mixture that does not explode spontaneously as the temperature and pressure in the engine increases can prevent it.

Gasoline composed of straight chain of carbon atoms tend to knock badly when fired in a cylinder. However, gasoline composed of many branched carbon chains or those with rings have a greatly reduced tendency to knock. Straight-chained hydrocarbons have low octane ratings. However, ring-type hydrocarbons have intermediate octane ratings. The highest octane ratings are given to the high-branched alkanes and benzene ring-shaped (aromatic) hydrocarbons. Gasoline refiners can make gasoline blends composed of the branched and ringed forms of gasoline. These “designer” fuels have been standardized using standard test engines. The antiknocking characteristics of hydrocarbons used in gasoline are designated by an octane rating, which is a number that indicates the tendency of a gasoline to knock in a high-compression engine. The higher the octane rating, the lower is the tendency for an engine to knock. Iso-octane is a form of gasoline with an excellent antiknocking quality; its rating of 100 is used as a standard. In contrast, n-heptane has a zero rating because it knocks so badly. If a gasoline has a rating of 90, then it has a 90 percent mixture of isooctane and a 10 percent mixture of n-heptane.

Lead is a soft metal that has been found to be useful in gasoline as an additive that will prevent preignition or knocking. However, while lead metal is not highly poisonous, lead can be rendered toxic when it combines with acids or oxides. The lead in gasoline expelled from exhaust pipes poses a major health hazard. A common form of lead additive was lead tetraethyl, Pb(c2H5)4 . In the 1970s, state and federal governments recognized lead pollution. Despite strong resistance on the part of the petroleum and gasoline industries, steps were taken to eliminate the use of lead in gasoline. By the 1980s, most of the gasoline in the United States was no longer sold as leaded gasoline, reducing the amount of air pollution caused by automobiles. Many other countries have followed suit. Gasoline fuel engines have been the mainstay American transportation for decades. They are very likely to continue to be used as long as ample supplies of gasoline are available. However, alternatives are being researched. One of these is the hydrogen fuel cell.

Bibliography:

F. Diaz and D.L. Drogos, eds., Oxygenates in Gasoline: Environmental Aspects (American Chemical Society, 2002);
Terry Dinan, Reducing Gasoline Consumption: Three Policy Papers (United States Government Printing Office, 2002);
T.K. Garrett, Automotive Fuels and Fuel Systems: Gasoline (Society of Automotive Engineers, 2000);
Richard Jablin, Transportation Solutions: Kicking Gasoline Dependency (Wheatmark, I, 2005);
Magda Lovei, Phasing Out Lead from Gasoline: Worldwide Experience and Policy Implications (World Bank Publications, 1998);
Barbara V. Urban, Gasoline Prices: Policies, Practices and Prospects (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).