What is the difference between fuel used in aeroplanes and fuel used in cars?

Question

What is the difference between fuel used in aeroplanes and fuel used in cars?

Answer 1

Like "Hanna's Grandpa" said, aeroplanes use a higher octane fuel. What this means is that a higher percentage of the gas is octane molecules. The difference between octane (8) and hexane (6) and nonane (9) is how many carbons are in each molecule of the petroleum hydrocarbons. The molecular structure is very important (for example water [h2o] is very different from hydrogen peroxide [h202], and carbon monoxide [co] is very different from carbon dioxide [co2]). A simple change addition of an already existing element in the molecule makes the substance extremely different. When there is more octane molecules in the gasoline, the gasoline works better in internal combustion engines (the cost is a little extra money for the gasoline because of extra refinement). The reason that higher octane fuels are better is that they are more resistant to premature explosion when the air-fuel mixture in the pistons is compressed. The internal combustion engine has 4 steps: intake (of fuel and air), compression (where the octane comes into play), explosion (what gives the energy and makes the engine run) and exhaust (explusion of the products of explosion, mainly co2 and other gases containing carbon). During the compression phase, the air and fuel has more pressure and as a result has a more energetic explosion. However, if the octane of the fuel is lower, it is more likely to explode on the compression phase, which damages engines because it doesnt allow the spark plugs to do their job. The reason cars do not use a higher octane fuel is because of the cost, but with aeroplanes it is more cost efficient to buy the higher octane and not have to replace the jet engines during the lifetime of the plane.

Answer 2

jet fuel- gasoline- diesel- and now bio fuels etc...

Answer 3

kero, diesal and jetfual are all variations of the same fuel.  Kero is a dryer fual that wont luberacate as well.   It can be mixed with diesal or bio diesal in the winter to keep you fual from gelling, but if used alone it will cause you engion to breake down becuase it needs more luberacation.  If you burning it ina furnace, you can use diesal or kero, but lubrication is not needed since your just burning it and not moving anything.  Kero is generaly a bit cheeper.  Jet fual is basicaly a very pure high octain vertion of kero.  Jets will run on kero or diesal, but will run smoother on the high powered pure jet fual.  Virgin atlantic ran a flight once using 20% bio diesal (diesal made from soy oil) and had no problems.

Answer 4

gasoline is used in aeroplanes and nowadays they used diesel. but it needs high calorific values compare to car and buses

Answer 5

Aeroplanes use a higher octane than cars do.

Answer 6

lets get it correct.  OCTANE is not C8 when it come to the OCTANE lable in gasoline. Gasoline is a mixture of hydrocarbons from C4 to C12.  A miture that must meet specific physical characteristics.  One characteristic is the OCTANE Number.  This physical property is a measure of a gasoline ability to not autoignite during the compression stroke.  This preignition called knocking.  We selected Iso Octane which is a branched version octane. The branching slows down the burning.  So, isooctane was the standard and it was given an arbratary value of 100.  On the other end of the specturm, plain old normal octane was given a value of  zero,  octane.

A miture of fuel is put into an enegine and the engine is calibrated agaist pure iso octane at 1000 on one end of dial (that changes compresion ratio) and 0 on the other end with normal octane.  The mixture of all the hydrocabons is  then tested for it octane content. So you see the various octane ratings on the fuel. Engines are designed to run on the different octane grades. One grades doesn't have anymore energy than the next unless ethanol has been added. Ethanol tests out at 105 Octane. Engine that requir high octane gas are designed to get the largest amout of horsepower with the smallest engine.

There is a second test or set of calculations that give similar results, but thats enough for now.

Everyone has jet fuel down pretty well.  It is a mixtur that has C6's to C25' or so.  There are tests to make sure it doesn't freeze (benezene a C6 molecule freezes at 40F), when the jets is flying at 30,000 feet and it -60F.

Piston engine airplanes need a lot of horspower with the smallest engines, so as stated above, they need high octane fuel.  Aviation gas is 100 octane. But aviation gas is allowed to use tetraethyl ead to change the octane rating up.  lead was outlawed in the 80's, but airplanes can still use it.  Cessna built some planes that could run on 85 octane car gasoline in an emergency.

Answer 7

Aeroplanes run on jet fuel, where as cars run on Diesel, Petrol, Kerosene, Electricity, Solar energy, now hydrogen and even air compresed modules are comming in market, even the inventions are on for using distiled water as fuel by electrolysis of H2O into hydrogen and oxygen to be used as car fuels.

Answer 8

Fuel used in aeroplanes/Jet planes is Aviation fuel (a high octane petrol) or Jet fuel (Kerosine based). While fuel used in cars is either petrol or diesel. Some gas (petrol) stations sell ethanol mixed with petrol to the extent of 10-20% legally.