How much carbon dioxide is produced by driving a car on

one tank of petrol?

Petrol is a mixture of several different organic carbon compounds. The most
common molecules in petrol are the alkanes, consisting of straight or branched
carbon chains with between 5-8 carbon atoms saturated with hydrogen
molecules (pentane, hexane, heptane and octane).

This is the chemical formula for the complete combustion of octane:
2 C
8
H
18
+ 25 O
2
= 18 H
2
O + 16 CO
2

As you can see from this simple equation, for every single octane molecule that is burned, 8
molecules of CO
2
are produced. The standard unit measure of compounds is the mole. 1 mole of
octane weighs 114 grams and contains avogadros number of molecules, 6.023 x 10
23
. 1 mole of
CO
2
gas weighs 44 grams, but takes up much more volume. Its important to remember from the
ideal gas law that at standard laboratory conditions (25C and 1 atmosphere pressure) one mole
of gas at occupies 24.5 litres. One litre of petrol contains ~737.22 grams of liquid (or ~6.47
moles). Therefore, when one litre of petrol is burned, 2.28kg of CO
2
are produced,
equivalent to 1268 litres of of CO
2
gas!! Every single 50 litre tank full of petrol will produce
over 63,400 litres of CO
2
gas (63.4 m
3
), or a volume equivalent to an imaginary cube with sides
4 metres long.
I find it interesting that people talk in terms of kilograms of CO
2
because it really underestimates
the quantity of gas were dealing with. Gases weigh hardly anything! In fact, 1kg of CO
2
equals
557 litres! Why dont we learn to quote the data figures of CO
2
in litres instead? How much
petrol must be burned to get 1kg of CO
2
gas? The answer is that only 324 grams of petrol will
yield 1 kg of CO
2
.
However, this is the chemical equation for a complete combustion reaction of octane, meaning
that it assumes there is an abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere and that no other
byproducts such as carbon monoxide are produced. Its a simple equation, but real life is more
complicated, so below is a more advanced chemical equation taking into account the nitrogen in
the atmosphere. 2
2 C
8
H
18
+ 25(O
2
+ 3.76N
2
)= 18 H
2
O + 16 CO
2
+94N
2

Taking this further, when an internal combustion engine is running rich, we get incomplete
combustion in which carbon monoxide (CO) and molecular hydrogen (H
2
) are byproducts of the
reaction, along with other gases of nitrogen. Here is the unbalanced equation occuring at high
temperature:
C
8
H
18
+ O
2
+ N
2
= H
2
O + CO
2
+ N
2
+ O
2
+ CO + H
2
+ H + O + OH + NO+ N
A advanced link to combustion theory can be read here. Things get substantially more
complicated when the flame kinetics & high temperatures of an exothermic reaction are taken
into account, as the products are able to break down & react with eachother. This is an online
application for determining the products of reaction of popular hyrdrocarbon fuels at elevated
temperatures and pressures. Other compounds such as SO
2
are also produced from the
oxidisation of sulphur impurities in petrol.