Combustion of Fuels

• Fuels → substances that can burn easily in air to give out energy

• Examples of fuels → fossil fuels such as coal (mainly made up of carbon), petroleum (crude oil), and natural gas (mainly made up of methane). other fuels are petrol and hydrogen gas. more about it in (link to chapter 21)

• Comparison of complete and incomplete combustion using combustion of methane.

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Type of Combustion	Complete	Incomplete
Limiting reactant	fuel (methane)	oxygen gas
Excess reactant	oxygen gas	fuel(methane)
Products formed	$C{O}_2$ and $H_{2}O$	$CO$, $H_{2}O$, C(soot)
Type of Energy change	endothermic	exothermic
Amt of Energy released	larger	lower

Important

during combustion of carbon containing fuels, both CO and $C{O}_2$ will be formed

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