Is hydrogen more flammable than petrol?

Answer 1

Yes. However you should learn to use the correct term, inflammable. The word "inflammable" came from Latin inflammāre = "to set fire to", where the prefix in- means "in" as in "inside" (compare English "in flames"). But there have been instances of people thinking that this "in-" prefix means "not" as in "invisible" and "incombustible" etc, and thus wrongly thinking that "inflammable" means "cannot burn". To avoid this safety hazard, the shortened word "flammable" has come into use in recent years.

Hence flammable can be hilariously described as: An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning "combustible" is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means "not combustible." For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.

Answer 2

Many substances react with oxygen in an exothermic (heat given out) reaction called combustion. If flames are given out during combustion, it is called burning.

To answer your question (which is rather unclear), no. Not really. Both catches fire rather readily. Oxygen however, is the thing that feeds the fire. If you combine large amount of oxygen with a small fire, water would be formed, thus extinguishing the fire with a 'pop' sound. However, if you combine a large amount of Oxygen with a small fire, the fire would burn even brighter and bigger.

Answer 3

The Flash Point and Autoignition temperature for gasoline (Petrol), is alot lower than Diesel fuel. Being a more refined fuel, gasoline is easier to burn. The hydrocarbon molecules in diesal are larger and able to produce more energy when burned, but to create that burn a higher energy must be produced. Diesel engines must create more compression to heat the fuel to an appropriate level for combustion. Petrol does not need that much compression for ignition due to its' smaller hydrocarbon molecules. The higher you go on the fractionation of refinement of crude oil the more simple the hydrocarbon compounds are. The smallest being methane(CH4). The average chemical formula for diesel fuel is C12H23, ranging approximately from C10H20 to C15H28. whereas gasoline is in the C6 to C11 range. Tar at the lower end of fractioning can be between C12000 to C30. Think of a butane lighter. Doesn't take much to light one, right? Butane is in the same category as gasoline. Diesel is right above the most refined tars.

Answer 4

Yes - CONSIDERABLY more explosive!

The "Lower Explosive or Flammable Limit" (LEL/LFL) (% by volume of air) for hydtrogen is 4%, for Methane it is 5%.

The "Upper Explosive or Flammable Limit" (UEL/UFL) (% by volume of air) for hydrogen is 75%; for methane it is 15%.

Clearly hydrogen is an explosion hazard over a much wider range of concentrations than methane.

Also

The laminar flame speed of a hydrogen/air mixture is approximately 10 times that of a methane/air mixture - so hydrogen is much more prone to transition from deflagration to detonation than methane. Detonation is far more powerful than the deflagration type explosions normally experienced with methane explosions.

And

The stoichiometric concentration of hydrogen with air is 29.6% with 55.6% nitrogen yielding 1 molecule of product (water) per molecule of hydrogen burned.

The stoichiometric concentration of methane is 0.095% with 71.5% nitrogen yielding 3 molecules of product (1 molecule of carbon dioxide and 2 molecules of water) for each molecule of methane burned.

As a consequence, more of the energy from burning methane is used to heat up the non-reacting nitrogen and products than is required from the burning of hydrogen to heat up the non-reacting nitrogen and H2O product. This in turn make a stoichiometric hydrogen flame (in air) hotter than a methane flame.

Answer 5

Hydrogen is not necessarily a better fuel than petrol. It has some significant benefits over petrol. The major difference is that hydrogen burns to release energy and produces nothing more than water in the process. On the other hand, petrol produces not only water but carbon dioxide and a wide selection of other oxides that can be harmful.

However, hydrogen is difficult to store. It requires special containers to prevent leakage and a host of other safety features to prevent explosion. Storage and transport is far more complicated than the relatively simple containers required for petrol.

Finally, although hydrogen produces no CO2 when burned, the process to extract hydrogen into a pure element is energy hungry and usually involves the use of carbon fuels. Therefore, the complete hydrogen cycle includes a significant amount of CO2 production and cannot be considered to be CO2 free.

Answer 6

Hydrogen burns to form water only. 2H2 + O2 -----> 2H2O

Petrol/petroleum/gasoline etc. are hydrocarbons and on burning also produce carbon dioxide and in limited oxygen even carbon monoxide and soot.

2C8H18 + 25O2 ------> 16CO2 + 18H2O

Answer 7

Yes, hydrogen is much more flammable than petrol or gas. This is mostly due to the fact that it is more flammable at a lower concentration, so it does not take much for it to combust.

Answer 8

Yes, petrol is highly flammable.

Answer 9

Yes. Very.