Question

Write a note on the history of fuels?

Answer 1

Answer:

Fuel is a material that transforms one source of energy into another to achieve different work. In other terms, any material that generates a usable amount of energy upon combustion is recognized as fuel.

Examples: Biogas, fossil fuel, nuclear energy and so on.

History of fuel

• The first documented use of fuel was the burning of sticks or wood by Homo erectus about 2 million years ago.
• Only fuel found in animals or plants fat has been used by humans during most of history of mankind.
• Charcoal, a wood derivative, has been used for melting metals since at least 6,000 BCE.
• The growth of the automobile is largely due to the invention of the internal combustion engine.
• But also because hydrocarbon-based volatile fuels are especially suitable for the operation of automotive engines and because the oil industry has been able to manufacture these fuels in inexpensive and adequate amounts and with gradually evolving performance.
• In the late nineteenth century, coal tar distillates and the lighter fractions of crude oil distillation were the most appropriate fuels for the car.
• For the first four-stroke cycle spark-ignition engine in 1884, petrol was used as the fuel.
• At the time, petrol was considered to be an unwanted by-product of the manufacture of kerosene.
• The oil companies developed petrol as a simple distillate from petroleum during the early twentieth century, but car engines were rapidly developing and their fuels needs improvement.
• In 1913, thermal cracking was incorporated to turn a greater fraction of petroleum into petrol.
• The introduction in the 1940s of the catalytic cracking process and catalytic reforming was critical for the manufacturing of product of high-octane petrol.
• The 1950s saw the beginning of the compression ratio rise in engines, which required higher octane fuels. Ratings of octane, lead levels, and increased vapour pressure.
• Until the 1970s-when unleaded fuels were introduced to protect the exhaust catalysts which were being implemented for environmental purposes-slight changes began to be introduced to petrol compositions to increase yields as well as octane.