Is it possible to boil gasoline

Picture a glass of water. If you could zoom in with super vision not actually possible , you would see that this water is made of a bunch of molecules—water molecules.

Although these molecules are themselves made of three atoms two hydrogens and one oxygen , let's just think of them as tiny balls. These tiny water balls are moving around in the water but stay fairly close to their ball neighbors. This motion isn't due to currents in the water, instead this is thermal motion. Imagine these tiny balls jiggling around in a giant collection of balls. The hotter the water, the greater the motion of these water balls.

But wait! The speeds of the water particles aren't all the same. Although there is an average ball speed, some are going faster and some are going slower. It's just like the height of a group of adult humans. There is an average height, but everyone is not the same.

Some people are VERY tall, but that's just a small fraction of the total group. If you have a glass of water sitting out on a table, the water balls don't just stay as a liquid. Some of these balls have enough thermal energy to break away and become free.

Free from the liquid stage means the water ball is now a gas—water vapor. Boiling is not needed to get this water vapor. It works the other way too. Some of the water balls in the gas stage can interact with the liquid water and join the liquid water balls. Water in a closed container like a water bottle will eventually reach an equilibrium state between water vapor and liquid water. At this equilibrium state the rate that water balls are freed from the liquid state are the same as the rate of water balls entering the liquid state.

The pressure of this water gas in equilibrium is called the vapor pressure assuming it's all water gas and no air in the container. You can see evidence of this water vapor in a closed container by looking at the water that condenses on the walls.

Here is a picture. As you increase the temperature of the water, there are more and more water particles that have enough energy to leave the water phase and become water vapor. So the water vapor pressure will increase with the temperature of the water this is important. Now for boiling water. Yes, I know you have seen this before. Are the bubbles made of air? What about some hydrogen and some oxygen? The bubbles are water vapor—they are small pockets of water in the gas phase.

Iso-octane see adjacent image , with a branched structure and a high resistance to knocking, has arbitrarily been assigned an octane rating of N-heptane see adjacent image , with a straight-chain structure and poor resistance to knocking has arbitrarily been assigned an octane rating of 0.

The octane rating of a specific gasoline is measured by using it in a single-cylinder test engine with a variable compression ratio and adjusting the ratio to produce a standard knock intensity as recorded by an instrument known as a knockmeter. By comparison to tabulated results from similar testing of various mixtures of iso-octane and n-heptane at the same compression ratio, the octane rating of the gasoline is determined.

The octane rating is measured at two different operational conditions. The Motor Octane Number is more representative of the performance of a gasoline when used in an automotive vehicle operated under load. In Europe and Australia and other countries, the octane rating shown on the pumps is most often the RON.

As a broad generality, the higher is the compression ratio of a spark-ignited internal combustion engine, the higher is the performance level of the engine and the higher is the octane rating required for the gasoline fuel. The design of an engine determines its compression ratio and, therefore, the required gasoline octane.

Using a gasoline with an octane rating higher than an engine requires will not improve the engine's performance, it will simply cost more. The vapor pressure of a gasoline is a measure of its propensity to evaporate i. However, from the viewpoint of gasoline performance:. Thus, gasoline producers must provide gasolines that make possible the easy starting of engines and avoid vapor locking problems [10] [11] while at the same time complying with the environmental regulatory limitations on hydrocarbon emissions.

When gasoline is combusted , any sulfur compounds in the gasoline are converted into gaseous sulfur dioxide emissions which are undesirable from the environmental viewpoint. Some of the sulfur dioxide also combines with the water vapor formed when gasoline combusts and the result is the formation of an acidic, corrosive gas that can damage the engine and its exhaust system.

Furthermore, sulfur interferes with the efficiency of the on-board catalytic converters discussed later in this article.

Thus, sulfur compounds in gasoline are highly undesirable from either the environmental viewpoint or the engine performance viewpoint. Gasoline stored in fuel tanks and other containers will, in time, undergo oxidative degradation and form sticky resins referred to as gums.

Such gums can precipitate out of the gasoline and cause fouling of the various components of internal combustion engines which reduces the performance of the engines and also makes it harder to start them. Relatively small amounts of various anti-oxidation additives are included in end-product gasoline to improve the gasoline stability during storage by inhibiting the formation of gums. Other additives are also provided in end-product gasolines, such as corrosion inhibitors to protect gasoline storage tanks, freezing point depressants to prevent icing, and color dyes for safety or governmental regulatory requirements.

As discussed later in this article, many gasolines contain ethanol which is an alcohol with the formula C 2 H 5 OH. Gasoline is insoluble in water but ethanol and water are mutually soluble. Thus, end-product gasolines containing ethanol will, at certain temperatures and water concentrations, separate into a gasoline phase and an aqueous ethanol phase.

For the same temperature range, the fraction of water that an ethanol-containing gasoline can contain without phase separation increases with the percentage of ethanol. Thus, gasolines containing more than 10 volume percent ethanol will be less likely to experience phase separation.

There is no "standard" composition or set of specifications for gasoline. In the United States, because of the complex national and individual state and local programs to improve air quality , as well as local refining and marketing decisions, petroleum refiners must supply fuels that meet many different standards. State and local air quality regulations involving gasoline overlap with national regulations and that leads to adjacent or nearby areas having significantly different gasoline specifications.

According to a detailed study in , [12] there were at least 18 different gasoline formulations required across the United States in Since many petroleum refiners in the United States produce three grades of fuel and the specifications for fuel marketed in the summer season vary significantly from the specifications in the winter season, that number may have been greatly understated.

In any event, the number of fuel formulations has probably increased quite a bit since In the United States, the various fuel formulations are often referred to as "boutique fuels". Environmental Protection Agency U. Some of the major properties and gasoline components focused upon by the various national and state or local regulatory programs are:. As mentioned earlier above, there are a great many different sets of specifications or standards for gasolines marketed in the United States. The specifications tabulated below are those that have been mandated by law in the state of California.

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