Hydrocarbons

Where do hydrocarbons come from? They have to do with the exhaust right?

hydrocarbons is unburnt fuel that makes it through the combustion chamber....thats what is usually refered to anyway.

a hydrocarbon is a molecule formed of hydrogen and carbon. methane is a hydrocarbon, so it ethan, acetylene, propane, etc. we use many as fuels. gasoline is a mixture of different hydrocarbons, mostly octane.

if you're referring to hydrocarbons in the exhaust, they are just molecules of unburnt fuel. the reason they get into the exhaust is because there might not be enough air to burn it or because there isn't enough time to burn it.

Gasoline or any petroleum product is just a string of hrdrocarbons.

Where do hydrocarbons come from?
Right out of the ground!
If you live in the U.S., they come from (in order)
The U.S, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, etc.

The U.S, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, etc.


reverse that order ;)
The US dos't like useing its own oil reserves.

We're just saving them for a rainy day.

this thread makes me laugh.

What is a hydrocarbon?

Look around. Hydrocarbon-product right infront of you. Plastic.

paper, wood, some cloths, fules, everything organic basically, plastics, even synthetics are all hydrocarbons.

Aerosol that have CFC's which are ChloroFloro carbons, where Chlorine and Florine took the place of Hydrogen in the chain of carbon atoms.

Sugar is a hydrocarbon with a few oxygen atoms as well.

your basic hydrocarbon fules start with Methane, which is one Carbon and 4 Hydrogens, then Butane, which is two carbons and 6 Hydrogens, Ethane, 3 with 8, Tetrane, 4 with 10, pentance, 5 with 12, Hexane, 6 with 14, Heptane, 7 with 16, Octane, 8 with 18, Nontane 9 with 20...the list goes on and on.

A visual demonstration of the fules are as so

Methane (A gas at STP):
H
l
H-C-H
l
H

Butane (Gas at STP):
H H
l l
H-C-C-H
l l
H H

all the way up to something like Decane which would have 10 carbon and 22 hydrogen.

Then you get into branches such as 2,MethylHexane which would have a methane molicule in place of one of the hydrogens on the 2nd carbon atom in the string of Hexane.

And do confuse you even more yo ucan get into the cyclo's where the carbons form a circle and bond to eachother dropping oen of the hydrogens.

or you can have double bonds between the carbons droppong one of the hydrogens.

then other atoms can take the place of hydrogen in the chains an circles taking up however many bonds they have to take up from the carbon.

and so on and so forth. most things you see that arent metal are probably a hydrocarbon of somesort.

that is a quick run down, im sure some of the ones more advanced in chemistry than i can fill you in more if need be.

just a few corrections there, ethane has 2 carbons, tetrane doesn't exist, butane has 4 carbons, and it's nonane not nontane.

if you want to know about hydrocarbons, PM me. I'm not claiming to be some sort of know-it-all in chemistry, i just really know high school chemistry, i just finished exams like 2 weeks ago so it's all fresh in my mind, and pretty correct concidering my exam mark.

oh that's right, its been a while since ive done organic chemistry, took me a while to remember the prefixes i got right...lol.