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Lets go further and synthesize them to even longer and more complex carbohydrates so that they will be liquid at normal temperature and smell nice!
by artemonster 1y ago
Lets go further and synthesize them to even longer and more complex carbohydrates so that they will be liquid at normal temperature and smell nice!
- troymc 1y agoEssential oils from plants (terpenes/terpenoids) are hydrogen-rich hydrocarbons and they smell nice. Menthol is an example, with a hydrogen mass fraction of about 12%. For comparison, water has a hydrogen mass fraction of about 11.2%. If you abandon the "smell nice" constraint, you can get an even higher hydrogen mass fraction. For example, n-pentane has a hydrogen mass fraction of about 16.8% and it's liquid at a pressure of 1 atmosphere and a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius, but it evaporates rapidly, so you need to keep it in a container. If you don't mind pressurizing the container a bit, you could put ammonia in there, and it has a hydrogen mass fraction of about 17.6%.
- artemonster 1y agoIt was a joke about gasoline
- ricardobeat 1y agoSmells nice?
- SoftTalker 1y agoSome people actually think it does. Especially before it had so much ethanol added. I don't think it smells particularly nice but it is definitely a memory trigger of being a small kid helping my dad get the lawn mower ready to cut the grass.
- toast0 1y agoEthanol free gas definitely has a more enjoyable smell than gas with ethanol, but nice is maybe the wrong word.
- bilsbie 1y agoI didn’t realize the mass fractions were that low. Is that correct??
- philipkglass 1y agoYes, because hydrogen atoms are so light. It takes 12 hydrogen atoms to equal the mass of a carbon atom and 16 hydrogen atoms to equal the mass of an oxygen atom.
- bilsbie 1y agoIt’s a surprisingly good rocket fuel to be mostly carbon then.