How can one litre of gasoline, weighing less than 1 kg, produce 2.4 kg of CO2?
The reason is as follows: • Gasoline is very rich in carbon. • The combustion process requires a lot of oxygen, and this oxygen has considerable mass. • During the combustion process, the carbon content of the fuel combines with oxygen from the air to form carbon dioxide. In other words, a litre of gasoline containing approximately 0.64 kg of carbon combines with nearly three times that amount of oxygen, thus producing approximately 2.4 kg of carbon dioxide (or CO2).
