How do we represent the combustion of gasoline?

1 Answer
anor277
Mar 1, 2017

Well, first you must define #"gasoline...."#

Explanation:

As far as I know, gasoline is composed of isomeric #"octane"#.

And to balance any combustion reaction, garbage in must equal garbage out.

#C_8H_18(l) + 25/2O_2 rarr 8CO_2(g) + 9H_2O(l)#

Is this balanced? We could represent incomplete combustion by the reaction:

#C_8H_18(l) + 11O_2(g) rarr 6CO_2(g) +C(s) +CO(g) + 9H_2O(l)#

Of course, we have to establish the extent of carbon monoxide and particulate carbon by analysis; here some of the carbon is oxidized incompletely.

Related questions
See all questions in Balancing Chemical Equations
Impact of this question
1185 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License