Fuel molecules

Examining the details involved in the oxidation and pyrolysis (thermal decomposition) of fuel molecules is veiy important. The results of these research... 

STRATEGY The first step is to convert heat output required into moles of fuel molecules by using the thermochemical equation. Then use the molar mass of the fuel to convert from moles of fuel molecules into grams. 

Convert heat output into moles of fuel molecules. 

FUEL MOLECULE containing fuel njtkcxjEN atoms... 

With the discussion of oxygenafe, pofentially bioderived, fuels and fuel additives such as alcohols, ethers, or esters, the need for defailed information on their combustion chemistries is becoming acute. Additional functional groups in the fuel molecule lead to a larger number of possible structural isomers. The influence of the chemical structure of the fuel molecule... 

In Og (Figure 8.1.5b), xmlike in the Ig case, the fuel jet momentum dispersed and the centerline velocity decayed rapidly owing to the lack of buoyancy. As a result, the fuel molecules diffused in every direction and formed a quasi-spherical flame. The slow diffusion processes (1) limited the transport rates of the fuel and oxygen into the flame zone and (2) decreased... 

Fatty acids are synthesized by an extramitochondrial system, which is responsible for the complete synthesis of palmitate from acetyl-CoA in the cytosol. In the rat, the pathway is well represented in adipose tissue and liver, whereas in humans adipose tissue may not be an important site, and liver has only low activity. In birds, lipogenesis is confined to the liver, where it is particularly important in providing lipids for egg formation. In most mammals, glucose is the primary substrate for lipogenesis, but in ruminants it is acetate, the main fuel molecule produced by the diet. Critical diseases of the pathway have not been reported in humans. However, inhibition of lipogenesis occurs in type 1 (insulin-de-pendent) diabetes mellitus, and variations in its activity may affect the nature and extent of obesity. 

Chemical combustion is initiated by the oxidation or thermal decomposition of a fuel molecule, thereby producing reactive radical species by a chain-initiating mechanism. Radical initiation for a particular fuel/oxygen mixture can result from high-energy collisions with other molecules (M) in the system or from hydrogen-atom abstraction by 02or other radicals, as expressed in reactions 6.1-6.3 ... 

As fuel molecules are oxidized, the electrons they have lost are used to make NADH and FADH2. The function of the electron transport chain and oxidative phosphorylation is to take electrons from these molecules and transfer them to oxygen, making ATP in the process. 

In addition to CN and ON, the smoke point (SP), which is the maximum smoke-free laminar diffusion flame height, has been employed widely to evaluate the tendency of different fuels to form soot. This tool was first applied to kerosenes, later diesel, and then jet engine fuels.19,20 Researchers have tried to relate smoke points of pure compounds to their molecular structure. It was found that the inverse of smoke point, which measures the potential of a fuel to form soot, increases from n-paraffins to iso-paraffins to alkylbenzenes to naphthalenes.21,22 Since smoke points vary with experimental conditions, the concept of a threshold soot index (TSI), which is calculated from the smoke point, molecular weight, and experimental constants, has been used to compare the soot-formation tendencies of different fuel molecules.23... 

The shift of curves, as shown in Fig. 3.9, is unsurprising since the larger fuel molecules and their intermediates tend to break down more readily to form radicals that initiate fast reactions. The shape of the propane curve suggests that branched chain mechanisms are possible for hydrocarbons. One can conclude that the character of the propane mechanism is different from that of the H2—02 reaction when one compares this explosion curve with the H2—02 pressure peninsula. The island in the propane-air curve drops and goes slightly to the left for higher-order paraffins for example, for hexane it occurs at 1 atm. For the reaction of propane with pure oxygen, the curve drops to about 0.5 atm. 

Owing to this large concentration of OH relative to O and H in the early part of the reaction zone, OH attack on the fuel is the primary reason for the fuel decay. Since the OH rate constant for abstraction from the fuel is of the same order as those for H and O, its abstraction reaction must dominate. The latter part of the reaction zone forms the region where the intermediate fuel molecules are consumed and where the CO is converted to C02. As discussed in Chapter 3, the CO conversion results in the major heat release in the system and is the reason the rate of heat release curve peaks near the maximum temperature. This curve falls off quickly because of the rapid disappearance of CO and the remaining fuel intermediates. The temperature follows a smoother, exponential-like rise because of the diffusion of heat back to the cooler gases. 

Following the conceptual idea introduced by Milliken [68], Takahashi and Glassman [53] have shown, with appropriate assumptions, that, at a fixed temperature, i/c could correlate with the number of C—C bonds in the fuel and that a plot of the log ipc versus number of C—C bonds should give a straight line. This parameter, number of C—C bonds, serves as a measure of both the size of the fuel molecule and the C/H ratio. In pyrolysis, since the activation energies of hydrocarbon fuels vary only slightly, molecular size increases the radical pool size. This increase can be regarded as an increase in the Arrhenius pre-exponential factor for the overall rate coefficient and hence in the pyrolysis and precursor formation rates so that the C/H ratio determines the OH concentration [12]. The 4>c versus C—C bond plot is shown in Fig. 8.14. When these... 

The stoichiometric factor is the number of water molecules produced per fuel molecule in complete combustion. For example, for CH4, which combusts to 2 H2O, the stoichiometric factor is two. 

Li, Z., D. Peiris, J. Eckwert, and S. L. Anderson. 1996. Flow tube mass spectrometry of strained hydrocarbon fuel molecules. 9th ONR Propulsion Meeting Proceedings. Eds. G. D. Roy and K. Kailasanath. Washington, DC Naval Research Laboratory. 145-52. 

Figure 5-4. Metabolic activities of major organs in the fed state. The relative activities of major metabolic pathways or processes in each of the organs are indicated by their font sizes. The exchange of nutrient materials and fuel molecules through the bloodstream illustrates the interrelationships of these organs. In the absorptive condition, all organs share the bounty of nutrients made available by digestion of food by the intestine. PPP, pentose phosphate pathway FA, fatty acids TAG, triacyl-glycerol.

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