Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have to design an experiment. Gasoline methane and diesel are fuels which one these is ecofriendly, design an experiment to test this.

I think of doing combustion experiment,where production of co2 will show which fuel is ecofriendly. But the problem is I don't know how to design it any how am I going to measure co2 and wouldn't it be dangerous to do in a lab.?

Hi Tatti45,

A combustion experiment comparing the CO2 production from different fuels is possible in a specially equipped lab. To do this you'd need a reactor for the combustion process and a method for CO2 analysis.

The following links describing combustion product analysis may be of interest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion_analysis

https://www.ohio.edu/mechanical/thermo/ ... ter11.html

An infrared spectrometer is an instrument commonly used for determining CO2 content. This kind of instrument is described in the following links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sensor

https://www.rotronic.com/en-us/humidity ... g/co2.html

I hope this helps. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman