Why do cars pollute the air?

Question

Why do cars pollute the air?

Answer 1

cars pollute the air because they produce CO2 (carbon dioxide) this is one of the major gases that contribute to global warming - but anyway that is why they pollute.

Answer 2

They burn hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are flamable compounds that are made up of hydrogen and carbon in various concentrations. Oxygen and energy are added to the hydrocarbon, producing a reaction called combustion. Combustion creates energy, CO2 (carbon dioxide) and H2O (water). The CO2 goes into the atmosphere and traps heat, thus warming the planet and causing pollution and global warming.

Answer 3

Ask a chemist what happens exactly, but what's supposed to happen is that hydrocarbons (which contain various mixes of  H and C) mix with air (which contains N and O) to make H2O and CO2, which you've heard of - water and carbon dioxide.  The N (is supposed to just pass through the engine unaffected.

Of course, real world, some of those chemical reactions go sideways.  You get some CO (carbon monoxide, a poison).  You get clumps of H and C.  You get NO2 (somehow the N got involved!)   Those are pollution.

In the old 1960's cars, this used to be really bad. It was worst of all in L.A.   Anyway the government said "Hey, you gotta fix those engines so they burn closer to ideal."  After 40 years of evolving this, cars are unbelievably "cleaner".  They generate 1/1000 or even 1/10000 the pollution they used to.   It's quite amazing.

Anyway, now cars generate H2O and CO2 like they were meant to.  But in recent years we've discovered that CO2 is a problem, though, of a different sort.  It doesn't cause smog but there's strong evidence that it causes global climate change. Now they're trying to figure out what to do with that, because CO2 is an intended exhaust - you can't tune engines to not put it out.  It may take redefining cars as we know them.   Which might actually be cool.

Answer 4

cars produce carbon dioxide which is verrry bad . i learned about it in science but i dont really wanna write it all out lol

Answer 5

when you take a hydrocarbon fuel, and add air that is a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and other gases, compress it, and then light it off with an ignition source, you end up with different compounds being created depending on how complete that combustion process is. a properly operating internal combustion engine using gasoline as a fuel would produce carbon dioxide and water as combustion by products assuming complete combustion. since complete combustion, even in this day in age, isn't possible, you end up with other compounds such as oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and sulfur dioxide. some of these can be reduced by changing the air/fuel mixture, but when you do that you increase others.

Answer 6

because they do

Answer 7

Because anytime you burn a petroleom based fuels you always produce hydro-carbon, carbon, and nitrogen oxides...

Answer 8

the guy above me is completely wrong, the actually produce carbon monoxide not carbon dioxide. and it eats away at the ozone layer causing it to thin...

Answer 9

the byproduct of any explosion using hydrocarbons produce a chemical...i.e. exhaust from a tailpipe, which is full of CO2, CO, NO, and NO2 to name a few substinces.