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TechnoratiToxic Petrol Smoke
Submitted by Anonymous on 12 December 2005 - 1:58pm.
OK, time for some chemists to make themselves useful!
With a good few hundred square miles of England currently buried under smoke from a huge petrol depot fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Hertfordshire_Oil_Storage_Terminal_fire
what substances ought we to expect in the smoke?
The stuff burning is "largely hydrocarbons", but that black smoke doesn't look too much like CO2 and H20 to me! (since neither of those are black!)
They speak to us - modern
They speak to us - modern cars have ideal motors and manufacturers have made all for decrease in a fuel flow. What it is possible to think up? We do not compete with Renault or GM, but i want to remind, that the motor ceases to be ideal in a year of operation, and ideal fuel does not exist in general...
They speak to us - there are devices for economy of 30 % of fuel, but You offer 2-8 % - it is a little... We shall try to explain to You why it is lie.
They speak to us - modern
They speak to us - modern cars have ideal motors and manufacturers have made all for decrease in a fuel flow. What it is possible to think up? We do not compete with Renault or GM, but i want to remind, that the motor ceases to be ideal in a year of operation, and ideal fuel does not exist in general...
They speak to us - there are devices for economy of 30 % of fuel, but You offer 2-8 % - it is a little... We shall try to explain to You why it is lie.
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2149951
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2149962
These fires never get enough oxygen, because of the amount of fuel in there. So along with all the nasty nasties that are in the fuel (sulphur and stuff), you are gonna have just some unburned hydrocarbins being lifted into the sir in the drifsf and a LOT of soot.
You can see the cloud from Oxford.
I agree that what your
I agree that what your seeing is soot, and nothing else. Oxygen is a powerful smoke juice that burns like crazy. Theres nothing else like it.
Johnny Blaze
I'm mindful that an effective way to commit suicide is to breathe in car exhaust -
how similar is this fire's output to what comes out of the exhaust pipe of a car? (given that its mostly ordinary domestic petrol burning)
Will there be nitrogen oxides? or do they only form in a car engine due to the pressure? or is that later photolytic action on smog in the atmosphere?
Will there be any aromatic things in it? or all it aliphatic?
(with 30 million gallons burning, I guess even trace constituents begin to be important)
You can't see it down here on the coast in Brighton, cos the South Downs are in the way, but I bet i could if I went and climbed up on them!
Carbon monoxide kills you in car exhaust deaths (so if you don't have a catalytic convertor it is harmless)
I guess there will be some CO in the smoke, but not leathal amounts.
the majority of the stuff will be C (elemental amorphous carbon from incomplete combustion or destructive distillation of the paraffins), some CO2, H2O and CO; NO, NO2, and N2O5 are largely produced in the combustion chamber of internal combustion engines under extremes of T and P; they are unlikely to be produced from heptane burning in the open. There should also be some lighter alkanes as a result of unauthorized cracking of the paraffins in the gasoline.
I hope the get the fire out with minimum damage to the environment. :(
btw CO is a reducing agent, so it will spontaneously convert to CO2 in the air 2 CO + O2 > 2CO2.
There is always a small percentage of Co in the atmosphere at any time. In a garage hemoglobin (or haemoglobin if you prefer) has a greater affinity for CO than for O2 and thus binds more effectively with CO than oxygen resulting in death (CN works pretty much the same way). But with CO you get bright red lips and cheeks, so it is a nice looking corpse.
I said all those 8)
(Elemental C = soot :))