What are the Types and Properties of Liquid Fuels?
What are the Types and Properties of Liquid Fuels?
Oil is the only natural liquid fuel. Oil is formed by covering the organic remains of ancient animals and plants with sand, stone, and soil, isolated from the outside air, and affected by geology and bacteria for a long time.
Considering the rational utilization of resources, it is unreasonable to directly use oil as fuel. The liquid fuels currently used are mainly various petroleum products refined from petroleum. In addition, artificial liquid fuels are also produced from oil shale and coal. In recent years, many countries are also actively studying various biological alternative liquid fuels, such as methanol, ethanol, and esterified animal and vegetable oils, and have made significant progress. At present, they have been successfully applied to automobile engines and agricultural power machinery. Biosubstitute liquid fuel is a kind of renewable energy with a wide range of sources, so it has a very broad prospect.
Liquid fuel has many advantages, such as high calorific value, convenient use, low combustion pollution, etc. It is an ideal fuel, but its use is limited by specific resource conditions in various countries. China’s average oil reserves are low according to the population. Therefore, the use of petroleum liquid fuels should be limited to the occasions where they must be used, such as transportation power units, mobile power units, and some industrial furnaces with special requirements due to production processes.
Petroleum is not only an important energy resource but also a valuable chemical raw material. Not only can various liquid fuels and lubricating oils be refined from petroleum, but also many important industrial products can be produced, such as synthetic fibers, plastics, dyes, medical supplies, rubber, explosives, etc. Therefore, oil plays a very important role in national economic construction and national defense construction.