Talk:Gasoline/Draft

Wikipedia has an article of the same name

This CZ article was created from scratch. There may be some few phrases or sentences similar to those in the WP article ... if so, they were not intentionally copied from WP. Milton Beychok 01:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Soliciting reviews on this article about Gasoline

I would appreciate any review comments about this article by one and all. Milton Beychok 21:49, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Wim Van Wassenhove responded to my solicitation for a review and offered a few comments:

• It should be mentioned that heavier crude oils required more complex refining configurations: In response, I have made such mention.
• The discussion of sulfur-dioxide smogs in London should mention that they occurred in the 19th century: In response, I have added mention that they occurred in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
• Emission of hydrocarbon vapors due to high vapor pressures of gasolines has more relevance to air quality than to gasoline formulations: In response, I still feel that controlling the vapor pressure is part of formulating gasoline and so I made no changes in the discussion of vapor pressure in the gasoline formulation section,
• The discussion of octane rating is too detailed: In response, since octane rating is the most important property of gasoline to the general public, the article needs to explain what it is and how it is measured. To do that, the general public reader must be given some insight as to how an internal combustion engine works. I have re-read that section and I managed to delete perhaps a few dozen words. I cannot see how to delete more than that.

I want to thank Wim Van Wassenhove for his review and comments. Milton Beychok 21:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Random comments

"Mogas" is the general term for gasoline in the U.S. Army; I had always assumed it was some corruption of "military gasoline". Now I know!

I'd consider moving the detailed regional composition material to a subpage, but, at the very least, moving "Properties that determine the performance of gasoline" before those tables -- things like "octane rating" are defined there, but are used in the earlier tables. If you do this, you may want to merge some of the material on "vapor pressure" from the "properties" section into the explanation of effects on air pollution. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Howard. Wow! You are one fast reader and writer! I don't know how you do it! I will wait to hear (hopefully) from the other 5 people I asked for comments before I make any changes. Regards, Milton Beychok 22:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Although I am still waiting to hear from two other people whom I solicited for a review, I have gone ahead and reformatted the article by putting the "Properties that determine the performance of gasoline" section ahead of the "Gasoline formulations and air quality regulations" section as you suggested. That does seem more logical. Thanks again, Milton Beychok 04:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Review comments I requested of Anthony Argyriou (moved here from User_talk:Milton_Beychok/Sandbox)

Milton - the article looks very good. If I were writing it, I'd have written more about TEL, but that's partly because my father was involved with TEL in his career with DuPont, so I know more about it than about many other aspects of gasoline; I don't think it's necessary to discuss it more in this article. The one significant thing that isn't explicitly stated that I think should be mentioned is the range of the primary components of gasoline. It's my understanding that octane isomers are the modal hydrocarbon, and that most of the gasoline is in the range C6-C10, but I don't know that for certain, and it would be nice to have that included. I think it might be worth including a discussion of why certain fractions might ignite early causing knock - do they vaporize at lower temperatures, or are just more prone to ignition at lower temperatures?

I could suggest a number of minor copyedits, but you said you didn't want that at this time, so I'll leave that alone. Anthony Argyriou 04:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC

Thanks very much for your comments, Anthony. As for the hydrocarbons in gasoline, the second sentence in the introduction states "... ranging from those containing 4 carbon atoms to those containing 11 or 12 carbon atoms." Whether the bulk of the components range from C6 to C10 ... or C6 to C9 ... or any other range is hard to say. It depends on the specified vapor pressure (usually controlled by amount of C4 components) and the specified final boiling point (FBP) which is where the C11 to C12 components come into the picture. I really would not like to make a flat statement about the bulk of the gasoline being any particular range. There are just too many different formulations.

As for why certain hydrocarbons knock, it depends on the their molecular structure. As stated in the "Gasoline production from crude oil" section: "Hydrocarbons with more complicated configurations such as aromatics, olefins and branched paraffins have much higher octane ratings. To that end, many of the refining processes used in petroleum refineries are designed to produce hydrocarbons with those more complicated configurations." To the best of my knowledge, it is simply a property of straight chain hydrocarbons that they have a lower ignition temperature and therefore more tendency to undergo ignition by being compressed (i.e., without any spark to start the ignition) than do hydrocarbons with more complicated structures (like iso-octane or benzene). As you know, a diesel engine has no spark plug ... it is a compression-ignited engine rather than a spark-ignited engine. And the ideal fuel for a diesel engine is pure cetane, a straight chain alkane with 9 carbon atoms. That's why diesel fuels are rated by a "cetane number" (rather than octane number). But such more detailed discussion really belongs in a stand-alone article on Octane rating. That's why the "Octane rating" subsection starts with: "For more information, see: Octane rating". I really am not an expert on octane numbers and I hope that someone who is an expert will someday write that article on Octane rating.

Once again, thanks for your comments. As you have probably noticed, I have now created the Gasoline article in the namespace ... so have at it with any copy edits. Milton Beychok 06:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Note the underlined phrase that I added above to better answer your question. Milton Beychok 15:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

A very nice read

This is an excellent article that is quite enjoyable to read. It flows very well. I made 2 or 3 minor changes only. David E. Volk 20:19, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, David. Milton Beychok 20:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Stability section

Milton, the only minor area that I would like changed a bit is the section on phase separation. The terms "more easily" and "less easily" and comparing lower to higher temperature seems odd somehow to me. If something combines at lower temperature, than it should be more easily, less energy input to create the mixture from the phases.

Could it rephrased as something like: (I may have facts backward!) Mixtures with <10% ethanol are stable over a wider temperature range, and are thus more stable at frigid temperatures, while mixtures with > 10% ethanol are stable over a more limited temperature.

This might be a perspective issue. Stability of the mixture vs. heat required to make the mixture from the separated components. In either event, the phase changes are all "easy" for the chemicals, they just do it, no complaining.

I had to re-read that little part several times on the first reading of it, so I think we could make it flow a bit better. BTW: on the phase separation diagram, is it only valid in a certain pressure range? David E. Volk 15:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

David, you are right, that section is poorly worded. I am going to change it to:

"For the same temperature range, the fraction of water that an ethanol-containing gasoline can contain without phase separation increases with the percentage of ethanol."

I hope that clears it up for you. As for the effect of pressure, I simply don't know how that effects phase separation. However, gasoline is rarely stored at any pressure other than atmospheric pressure. Milton Beychok 16:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

That is much better. Thanks Milton. David E. Volk 17:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion for ID Version 1.0 stopped here. Please continue further discussion under this break.

Congratulations, the article has been approved

Congrats, Milton, the article is now, God willing, Approved by yours truly! It even has a bar across the screen that other Approved articles apparently don't have.... Hayford Peirce 20:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Slightly confused, but I haven't yet gone through the history. It looks like there is some flow editing and reference cleanup, and I have a sense it reads better than the earlier approved version. Are there other substantive changes to which I should pay special attention?

Just a matter of personal curiosity that has nothing to do with approval -- EPA adopts ASTM testing specifications for biodiesel. Is there a reason that this apparently was noncontroversial but there are no norms for gasoline?

--Howard C. Berkowitz 18:06, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

One other thing, Howard, the reason you are confused is that Hayford's message above is from a year ago. Chris Day 15:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Howard, the main changes are: (1) a photo was added to the Draft version (the Approved version does not have that photo), (2) the history section was expanded and revised somewhat by David Yamakuchi, (3) some of Yamakuchi's references were not properly formatted, so I re-formatted them, and (4) any other changes were primarily insignificant copy edits.

Yes, there are a number of ASTM test method procedures for determining the various properties of gasoline, as for example: the boiling range, the vapor pressure, the octane number, the contents of sulfur, benzene, olefins, aromatics, etc., etc. This article focuses on the established standards for those properties by the EPA and California as detailed in the article's tables ... but there is no need to get into the arcane, technical details of the ASTM methods of determining those properties in the laboratory. I hope this answers your questions. Milton Beychok 23:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean the details of the tests, but the statement that there is no national standard for gasoline -- when there is one, which EPA bases on ASTM, for biodiesel. Don't think of this as a bar to reapproval, but, as one who tries to work with biodiesel, I'm puzzled why there is a regulatory difference. --Howard C. Berkowitz 16:40, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

The EPA *does* regulate gasoline. But it is very complicated as explained in this paragraph of the article, especially the last sentence of the section "Gasoline formulations and air quality regulations":

There is no "standard" composition or set of specifications for gasoline. In the United States, because of the complex national and individual state and local programs to improve air quality, as well as local refining and marketing decisions, petroleum refiners must supply fuels that meet many different standards. State and local air quality regulations involving gasoline overlap with national regulations and that leads to adjacent or nearby areas having significantly different gasoline specifications. According to a detailed study in 2006, [13] there were at least 18 different gasoline formulations required across the United States in 2002. Since many petroleum refiners in the United States produce three grades of fuel and the specifications for fuel marketed in the summer season vary significantly from the specifications in the winter season, that number may have been greatly understated. In any event, the number of fuel formulations has probably increased quite a bit since 2002. In the United States, the various fuel formulations are often referred to as "boutique fuels".[13][16][17] In general, most of the gasoline specifications meet the requirements of the so-called Reformulated Gasoline (RFG) mandated by federal law and implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA).

Biodiesel is such a minor player as an automotive fuel, that its regulatory status has not yet become complicated. Milton Beychok 17:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I have one comment with regard to the new photo's caption. It currently reads "Photo of dense traffic on a freeway superimposed with a photo of a gasoline fuel pump nozzle."; a perfectly accurate description. But, I suspect there was another motive to add this, and that might be the better caption. i.e. 'Cars for personal use are the largest consumers of gasoline'. Or 'Cars use 66% of all gasoline refined from crude oil'. Chris Day 15:43, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Chris, I changed the phot caption along the lines that you suggested. Thanks, Milton Beychok 17:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

re-approval

Also, if this is up for re-approval then an editor needs to add that to the metadata, in the same way one would for approval first time around. Chris Day 15:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Chris, maybe you can clarify how I do it. Since the metadata complains if something is made status 0 and then the "to approve" fields are completed, do I put in the version to approve, change the status back to 1, and then fill in "to approve"? --Howard C. Berkowitz 16:36, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

A slight editorial change -- right now, compression ratio shows as a redlink, but has a footnote (i.e., no citation) for definition. It would be cleaner, I suspect, to delete the footnote and move its contents to a lemma -- or an article if that's appropriate. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Good idea, Howard. The lemma has been created and used to replace the reference. Thanks, Milton Beychok 17:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Howard, see the metadata edit I just made. If you want the subpages to be part of the approval just write "yes" or Y (actually, anything will do, even no, I know, I know, that's not logical) in the cluster parameter option. Chris Day 21:06, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

reAPPROVED Version 2.0

Discussion for Version 2.0 stopped here. Please continue further discussion under this break.

Additional information

Not exactly sure how to request information on Citizendium. On Wikipedia, additional information, or ideas for information were requested and discussed on the talk page. If this is not the correct procedure please advise.

Just looking at this article, it seems to me that although this is a well written article, it is missing a few things. I'm not trying to be overcritical, just I feel a few elements were left out/ could be added.

• Information about contribution to global warming.
• Peak oil.
• Sources of gasoline.
• Biofuels.
• Information on volatility.
• Additives.
• Health concerns.
• Pricing.

...said Andrew James Thomas (talk) 02:06, November 2, 2010

Andrew, Thank you for your comments and I will respond to them as best as I can. However, first let me explain that comments on Talk pages should always be signed and time stamped. All you have to do is sign the end of your comment with 4 tildes, like ==> ~~~~, and the software system will automatically sign your name and provide the date stamp as well. Also notice how I have indented my response. If you will click on the Edit tab above ... and then read the blue banner at the top of the edit page, it explains Talk Page Etiquette, how to indent comments and to sign comments.

Now to respond to your suggestions:

• Global warming: We have a separate, stand-alone article on Global warming and I am sure that you realize that not all scientists are in agreement about global warming. We also have articles on the Greenhouse effect, Carbon capture and storage, Air pollution emissions, Renewable energy and a host of other articles devoted to environmental issues. As the creator and main author of this article and many other Citizendium articles about petroleum refining processes, I believe there is nothing to be gained by discussing any possible effects of this article (or the other petroleum processing articles) on "global warming'" ... especially when many eminent scientists disagree with the global warming theory. Such discussion would only create a highly controversial section that would detract from the intent of this article, namely to write an encyclopedic article to explain what gasoline is, how it is formulated, what environmental regulations gasoline must meet and explain certain gasoline properties like octane number. This is not Wikipedia where environmental issues and global warming are interjected into many, many articles (by zealous environmentalists with an agenda), to the point where some of the articles have more space devoted to environmental issues than to the main subjects of the articles.

• Peak oil: That would be a good subject for a new article and one which we do no have as yet on Citizendium. But I don't believe we should include that in this article which is about gasoline and not about whether or not the world's supply of petroleum crude oil has reached or not reached it peak point. That too is a controversial subject which also does not belong in this article that is limited to explaining gasoline.

• Sources of gasoline: The primary source of gasoline is, by far, the refining of petroleum crude oil ... and the first section of this article is entitled "Gasoline production from crude oil". That section explains how gasoline is produced from petroleum crude and also points to the Petroleum refining processes for much more detailed information. Yes, there are other sources of gasoline such as ethanol usage in Brazil, production of liquid fuels from coal or from natural gas. etc. Those, again, are good subjects for new Citizendium articles but not for inclusion in this article. This article cannot be expected to cover every possible subject that has some small relevance to gasoline.

• Biofuels: Most biofuel production is directed toward making diesel fuel rather than gasoline fuel. Diesel-fueled engines are quite different from gasoline-fueled engines and diesel fuel is much different than gasoline fuel. It has a different boiling range entirely and a different set of environmental. regulatory specifications to meet. Biofuels constitute less than 2% of the world's transport fuel at present (see the Renewable energy article). Here again, biofuels should be the subject of a new, stand-alone Citizendium article.

• Volatility: Here you have lost me. This article discusses gasoline vapor pressure ( which is gasoline volatility) very adequately. It is one of the important properties of gasoline. If you want a more technical discussion of the meaning of word "volatility", then please refer to the Volatility (chemistry) article.

• Additives: The section entitled "Storage stability" adequately discusses most of the common additives and their uses. I know that TV advertisements talk about other additives as well and most of them are simply advertising hype.

• Pricing: I see no point in discussing gasoline prices because they fluctuate significantly from day to day ... so whatever prices would be given would be obsolete in short order. Beside most people can see what the prices are as they drive by their local gasoline or petrol refueling stations. I know that the Wikipedia article discusses prices. That is their choice. But it was not my choice to do so because of the transience of pricing.

• Health concerns: The article does discuss at length the history of health concerns that led to banning the use of tetraethyl lead to enhance the octane rating of gasoline. More importantly, the section entitled "Gasoline formulations and air quality regulations" is the lengthiest section in this article and it discusses all of the environmental regulations to limit the release of harmful pollutants such as benzene, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, olefins and aromatics. The whole purpose of discussing environmental regulations is that they limit the amounts of harmful and toxic pollutants formed by the combustion of gasoline. I know that the Wikipedia article discusses health concerns at more length, but I don't agree that this article needs any more such discussion than it already has.

You see, Wikipedia allows many anonymous people (using pseudonyms) to keep adding content to articles with no one person or no few persons to make sure that the added content is needed or that a consistent writing style is used in all those added contents. It is essentially a completely random free-for-all there. Citizendium believes in guidance by designated editors to keep articles on point and to have a cohesive writing style. We are not Wikipedia and you will find that many, if not most, of our articles differ considerably from their counterpart articles in Wikipedia. I was once a Wikipedian for over two years and contributed a great many articles there ... so I know how they function.

Andrew, I know that you just joined us today and you have had very little time to thoroughly read this article or to explore all of the related articles I have referred to in these response. Because of that, I decided to answer you in some depth. I applaud you for starting to contribute on the same day that you joined us ... very few new members have done so. However, it is a good idea to read articles very thoroughly and explore what other related articles exist to prepare yourself before initiating Talk page comments or for making edits in existing articles. Best regards, Milton Beychok 04:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for a thorough and in depth response. That is far more than I would have expected on Wikipedia. I did add ~~~ for a signature, but between my edits you also made an edit, so it was an accident that the time stamp was deleted. I don't agree with your arguments against a global warming section, or pricing section, even though I understand your reasoning against them. Whether you accept the science behind it or not, a simple link to the Global warming page would not go astray. But, I leave it to your judgment. Again, thank you for a speedy and informative response. Andrew James Thomas 03:21, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

It might not be amiss, for some of these topics that you consider related, to add to the Related Articles page. For those that have no article (i.e., show as red on the page), you could provide at least starting definitions or basic articles. That's one way we grow. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)