Lets go further and synthesize them to even longer and more complex carbohydrates so that they will be liquid at normal temperature and smell nice!
Lets go further and synthesize them to even longer and more complex carbohydrates so that they will be liquid at normal temperature and smell nice!
Essential oils from plants (terpenes/terpenoids) are hydrogen-rich hydrocarbons and they smell nice. Menthol is an example, with a hydrogen mass fraction of about 12%. For comparison, water has a hydrogen mass fraction of about 11.2%.
If you abandon the "smell nice" constraint, you can get an even higher hydrogen mass fraction. For example, n-pentane has a hydrogen mass fraction of about 16.8% and it's liquid at a pressure of 1 atmosphere and a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius, but it evaporates rapidly, so you need to keep it in a container.
If you don't mind pressurizing the container a bit, you could put ammonia in there, and it has a hydrogen mass fraction of about 17.6%.
I didn’t realize the mass fractions were that low. Is that correct??
Yes, because hydrogen atoms are so light. It takes 12 hydrogen atoms to equal the mass of a carbon atom and 16 hydrogen atoms to equal the mass of an oxygen atom.
It’s a surprisingly good rocket fuel to be mostly carbon then.
It was a joke about gasoline
Smells nice?
Some people actually think it does. Especially before it had so much ethanol added. I don't think it smells particularly nice but it is definitely a memory trigger of being a small kid helping my dad get the lawn mower ready to cut the grass.
Ethanol free gas definitely has a more enjoyable smell than gas with ethanol, but nice is maybe the wrong word.