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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2005
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Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:12
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Just for interest sake,
Where / what is LPG made from? is it from crude oil just like ordinary petrol?
Where does diesel come from? is it also from crude oil?
Is the rumoured home-made diesel made from products that come from crude oil anyway?
Just wondering whether all the ordinarily accessible fuels depend on crude oil.
What about methanol / ethanol (whatever they are)
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Location:
brisbane
Registered:
December 2004
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:19
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home made diesel isnt made from crude oil the old mans mate runs his land cruiser on it , cant remeber what he uses costs about 25c a litre to make , the car needs to be started on normal diesel though
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Location:
ballarat
Registered:
April 2003
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:24
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i would also like to know what the pros/cons are with mixing ethanol with normal petrol... they started this a little while ago but it wouldn't take off and people wouldn't touch it.
i heard it was becuase new car warranties stated in fine print that if anything other than the recommended fuel was used, the warranty was voided.
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
September 2005
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:25
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i think that you will find that both LPG and diesel are by products of the refining process used to make unleaded.
i know for sure that diesel is and is actually cheaper to make, but due to its relative low use in Australia has resulted in it being more expensive to buy.
as for the others, unsure.
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2005
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:42
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hmm so it seems if there was a shortage of crude oil, there would also be a shortage of LPG and diesel? And even though home made diesel might not be made from crude oil, I still wouldn't be surprised if it required products that came from crude oil - cooking oil?
and yeah ethanol would be interesting to find out more about, don't Indy cars run on ethanol? or was that methanol?
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Location:
Campbelltown
Registered:
November 2003
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:47
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Generally above oil you have LPG gas in the deposits found in the ocean, in the beds of WA most of this is actually gas with a little oil below.
You can also produce LPQ by breaking down the Crude oil into fractions, LPQ being the shorter carbon chain molecules that come off first until you slowing work your way thru, petroleum, kerosine (avgas), diesel, fuel oil, oils and parrifin wax etc.
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Location:
ballarat
Registered:
April 2003
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:53
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we are gonna need some hardcore chemists for this one methinks, and i am not one of them lol
going from these two pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
both are alchols, but ethanol is produced via fermentation (sustainable?) and methanol, as used by the indy cars and top fuel dragsters, is made from natural gas (not sustainable?)
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Location:
Melbourne
Registered:
November 2003
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:54
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Ethanol is made from lots of things. In australia it's made from the leftovers of the suggar refining process. In America it's made from corn.
Ethanol is less like petrol, and more like beer.
There isn't anything wrong with Ethanol in your engine. It actualy has a higher octaine than petrol, and runs cooler (so good for race applications - or so I hear). Anything over about 10% Ethanol will start to cause problems with stock tuning and may start wearing some parts of your fuel lines (much like unleaded petrol will to an unleaded car).
They have cars in America that can run on 85% ethanol, 15% petrol. But nobody uses them as most of them don't even know their cars can run on ethanol.
Here's an interesting bit of trivia. The petrol companies where looking for something to make the combustion process smoother and more complete for petrol. They looked into ethanol to do this, but decided not to as they didn't want to hand over any money to farmers, especialy as ethanol could replace petrol if the drive was there. So they went for lead instead.  They eventualy replaced lead with whatever is in unleaded petrol, as lead was a pullutant.
Ofcourse, ethanol runs a lot cleaner than petrol too, which is a plus.
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Location:
Campbelltown
Registered:
November 2003
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 05:55
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i did pretty well in chemistry, any who my post is just a general guide of what i cn remember, thats year 11 stuff (read early) so it was quite a while ago now (2 years and haven't touched it since).
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Location:
Hobart
Registered:
August 2004
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 06:22
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Finally an outlet for my countless years at university:
LPG can be found in reserves where there isn't much crude oil - it is a by product of oil refining, but is also produced from natural gas fields.
Diesel is also from crude oil and takes little refining, this is why it is cheaper to produce, but also why traditional diesels stank a lot (they have problems with too much sulphur in the fuel and sulphur stinks!).
"Biodiesel" is made from vegetable oils, this is true also of home made diesel fuels which are commonly made from waste vegetable oil from fast-food outlets, hence these fuels don't rely on crude oil reserves at all!
Ditto what shraka said about ethanol.
Methanol these days is commercially made from methane, which is the major component of natural gas - its a fossil fuel, but as for LPG not dependent on the price of crude directly if that helps. (Though as crude gets more expensive so does every other energy source!)
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Location:
eastern suburbs, melbourne
Registered:
March 2005
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 06:41
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the cruide oil refining prcess was invented by some polish dude jonks ago. hes also the guy who invented the first kero lamp(them old things that work like a zippo, but used to provide light), before him there where candles.
i think they heat the crude oil at different tempretures, they used a vertical cylinder, and lets say 500 deg at the top and 50 at the bottom(not exact, just using these figure to give u an idea).
this causes the oil to seperatre into different substances, gas(lpg?) will go to the top, petrol is somwhere in the middle along with all the other liquid stuff(kero, metho, etc) and at the bottom is tar(or a thick tar like liquid). then they prob take the petrol and add shit to it.
but dont take my word on it as im not 100% sure on this.
google it.
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Location:
eastern suburbs, melbourne
Registered:
March 2005
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Location:
Armidale
Registered:
January 2003
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Location:
ballarat
Registered:
April 2003
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 06:51
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rofl
gives the term "knocking" a new meaning... THE LITTLE BUGGER ISNT DEAD YET
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Location:
Hobart
Registered:
August 2004
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Thu, 15 September 2005 07:16
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lol, watch out mechanic kitteh! 
almost right illuminatus,
cracking crude oil relies on fractional distillation - the longer the alkane chain, the higher the boiling point.
Crude is pumped into a big vat and heated up to ~500C (i think), at which point nearly all of the crude has passed its boiling point and is in the gaseous state. The gases then rise up the column which is cooled such that the top is the coldest and it is warmer progressively as you get nearer the vat at the bottom. The differing boiling points of the various components then result in them condensing at various heights up the column and each fraction is collected separately. The most volatile (ie shortest carbon chain length) compounds make it out the top (LPG) and petrol condenses midway down, whilst oil condenses near the bottom.
Tar that is used in making roads is so involatile that it stays in the vat and is collected directly once all the other fractions have boiled away.
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Location:
Melbourne
Registered:
November 2003
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Fri, 16 September 2005 07:01
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As I understand it, you can put 100% ethanol in a diesel engine with only minor modifications. Why would you wanna make your alternative fuel from dead cats? When you can use ethanol?
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Location:
Perth, WA
Registered:
December 2004
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Re: Where do the different kind of fuels come from?
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Fri, 16 September 2005 07:26
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Bio-Deisel is made from animal fat. (or is it oil  )
its fucking gross, my mates dad makes it, its really, really, really, nasty smelly dirty shit, if you want to save that much money, be prepared to deal with some of the dirtiest shit ive ever seen.
Eldar.O.
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, not all oils, but most of them. it runs fine, but when u start the car it gives of a deep fried aroma. 