I couldn’t find information beyond: “Burning fossil fuels produces CO²” Apparently Fuels produces CO² because fuels produce CO²
In: Chemistry
Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, which are molecules made up entirely of hydrogen and carbon. There are a bunch of different types depending on the number of atoms and the shape of the molecule (methane, ethane, propane, butane, etc.). Gasoline, natural gas, jet fuel, etc. are all just mixtures of different types of hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbons are useful as fuels because they have energy stored in the forms of their molecular bonds, and it’s pretty easy for us to get that energy out by combusting them. All you need to do is combine them with oxygen and give them a little bit of energy. The hydrocarbons will react with the oxygen and put out a bunch of energy, which you can use to do work like run a steam boiler or push the pistons in an engine.
The thing is, when you have a chemical reaction, all the atoms you have on one side have to come out the other. They might move around between different molecules, but unless it’s a nuclear reaction you always start and end with the same number and types of atoms. So when you take all the hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen on one side of the equation and rearrange them on the other side, you end up with water and carbon dioxide. That’s just the most stable and efficient form those atoms can take once all the chemical energy from the hydrocarbon’s bonds are used up.
Here, for example, is what happens when you burn methane, the simplest hydrocarbon:
>CH4 + 2 O2 → 2 H2O + CO2
Well burning most things produces CO2. Burning wood does so, too. That’s because most things we like to burn are based on Carbon (C) and burning Carbon litterallx means letting that Carbon react with Oxygen (O) from the air to make CO2.
The CO2 in wood or in gas made from crops isn’t bad for the climate tho. That’s because the plants that are burned literally sucked exactly the same amount of CO2 that is produced out of the air before because that’s how plants grow. Because of that, the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t rise any higher, at least if you specifically let those plants grow to burn them. On the other hand, fossil fuels are made of carbon that had been stored deep inside earths crust for millions of years, and because of that, burning them means artifically adding new co2 to the atmosphere, which will make the overall CO2 level rise, which will in turn heat up our planet.
Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons – that is, they are made of hydrogen and carbon. Fire is the chemical reaction when rapid oxidation occurs, so in this case oxygen combines with the hydrogen to produce water, and with the carbon to produce carbon dioxide.
Fuels that contain carbon, and are burnt produce CO2. So, pretty much anything you set on fire produces CO2, including fossil fuels, wood, and charcoal.
Let’s take charcoal as an example, because it’s pretty close to being pure carbon. When something burns, it reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere. That chemical reaction releases energy in the form of heat and light, and results in a new molecule. Oxygen molecules are two oxygen atoms. When charcoal burns, a carbon atom combines with two oxygen atoms to make carbon dioxide.
And that’s basically why. If a fuel contains carbon, that carbon will react with oxygen, and the result is carbon dioxide.
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