What do fuels react with

The fuel you burn in your car's engine contains octane, C 8 H When octane is burned, the products are CO 2 and H 2 O. The key ingredient to the process is the availability of oxygen. Combustion cannot take place in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen. The answer to this question is the need to overcome the activation energy of the reaction, which means that it requires energy at first to "jump start" the process. In your car, the distributor and battery provide this starting energy by creating an electrical "spark".

Other sources of initial energy can come from the Sun, matches, friction, etc. The products of the combustion of hydrocarbons are carbon dioxide and water. Many hydrocarbons are used as fuel because their combustion releases very large amounts of heat energy. Ethanol can be used as a fuel source in an alcohol lamp. Write the balanced equation for the combustion of ethanol. Ethanol and oxygen are the reactants. As with a hydrocarbon, the products of the combustion of an alcohol are carbon dioxide and water.

Combustion reactions must have oxygen as a reactant. Because of the its chemical make up being only carbon and hydrogen, methane natural gas is a much cleaner burning fossil fuel than coal and oil. The only products released are CO 2 and water. Coal's chemical makeup has atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and other minerals, such as mercury. When coal is burned, the main byproduct released into the atmosphere is CO 2.

However, when coal goes through combustion, it also releases nitrogen and sulfur. The nitrogen is in the form of nitrogen gas N 2 or Nitrogen dioxide NO 2 , and the sulfur is in the form of sulfur dioxide SO 2 , which is a gas that causes acid rain.

Also, if coal or wood products are burned with an insufficient oxygen supply, carbon monoxide is produced. Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that replaces the oxygen molecules in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood supply of the lungs causing suffocation.

When petroleum products oil are burned, CO 2 is the primary byproduct as with the other fossil fuels.