Every day is a school day on PH and today is no different. On the internet there are many memes of the four bottles in a person's life, ranging from milk to Coca-Cola to beer and even a medical drip. At PH we feel one liquid is missing in those, one more often than not replacing the beer bottle - petrol. Litres and litres of it flow into cars daily, but what actually makes petrol a fuel?
'Rainmakerraw' is interested in learning more about petrol in general and, after exhausting Google for answers, has turned to the forum for help. Fair warning though: there's some fairly in depth chemistry being discussed here, as the impacts on power and economy of different fuels are debated
Petroleum is a mix of hydrocarbons of varying lengths, ranging from C5H5 to C8H18, which can then be refined. Fractional distillation takes place in the refinery separating the different molecules to produce different fuel. That's as far as our chemistry knowledge goes but the questions to be answered are:
"1) I am aware of the minimum density for petrol as listed in the British Standard, but if Fuel A has significantly higher density than Fuel B, does that indicate higher calorific density too, or anything else that would impact on power and/or economy? Or is it totally unrelated?
"2) If fuel A has significantly higher aromatics (and/or olefins) than Fuel B how does this impact the power and economy?"
We have had a few brilliant answers but we are eager to learn more, so if you have any suggestions please share them here.