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2013-02-11

How much air per liter of gas?


Ever get one of those questions that popped into your head that you just had to answer?

How much air does a car burn per liter of gasoline? I’m making many assumptions here. First we get the answer based on volume

Per liter of fuel, about 2 cubic meters of air is burned. (Remember that oxygen is what burns and this number includes all the stuff in the air.)
Yahoo Answers

I want it in mass so I convert a cubic meter of air in to about 1.21 kg of mass using the following link
Answers.com

Thus, per liter of fuel, less than 1 kg, 2.42 kg of air are burned. This supports my hypothesis that oxygen is actually what provides energy for the vehicle. The fuel is a catalyst to get at that energy. I suppose it takes a dance of chemical reactions to make the actions in the piston and crank.

This calculation does not sound correct. It seems that a lot more air would be used than a lousy 2 cubic meters. It just sounds to me that a lot more air could go through an engine in the amount of time that 1 liter of fuel is burned. I ran through the math in a couple pieces and it checks out. What may not check out is the amount of air that goes through an engine. I need to find numbers from an engine manufacturer instead of some geek at Answers.com.

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