PUPIL Resource Pack: Alcohols As Fuels

PUPIL Resource pack: Alcohols as Fuels

Your task is to research/investigate the uses and properties of alcohols as fuels. You may wish to comment on their place in the environment, in human life and lifestyle, in global society or all of the above. As a guide, you assignment should be 500-800 words excluding tables, charts and diagrams, however, there is no penalty for being out with this range.

You may find it useful to revise the following key areas to help you with your assignment:

Energy from fuels

·  Different fuels provide different quantities of energy and this can be measured experimentally and calculated using Eh = cmΔT

·  Balanced equations

·  Combustion reactions

Everyday consumer products

·  Uses of alcohols: to include their physical and chemical properties.

·  For straight chain alcohols (C1–C8) general formulae, systematic naming, structural formulae.

·  Functional groups in alcohols.

It will also be useful for you to read pages 9 – 20 of the following document for detailed marking instructions of the assignment.

http://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/GAInfoNational5Chemistry.pdf

Make sure you select sources that are reliable, relevant or give different perspectives.

Many are available, here are a few.

http://igpenergy.com/products/methanol-overview

http://www.easychem.com.au/production-of-materials/renewable-ethanol/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-ethanol-as-a-fuel

http://www.petroleum.co.uk/alcohol-fuel

http://www.odec.ca/projects/2008/rudn8i2/site.php?page=info%20By:%20Ilia%20Rudnitskiy

http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2012/08/03/will-e15-ethanol-blend-really-save-drivers-money/

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/02-03/biofuels/what_bioethanol.htm

The web allows you to access a huge amount of information.

Make sure that you remain focused as you carry out your research. It is very easy to get side-tracked. Keep reminding yourself what you are trying to find out as you research.

Interesting, but not relevant, sites can be visited later. Sites that seem to be promising can be bookmarked so that they can be returned to later.

Tables, graphs and pictures can be copied into a folder. It is likely that some will be used and some will not.

Your sources of information must be relevant and/or reliable.

The web contains many sites with reliable information — but inevitably some data is unreliable. As a general rule, information that is not attributed to a source is likely to be unreliable. Professional, government and SQA sites are all reliable sources of information, however other online sources may be less reliable.