[Corvettaholic]

I saw on another thread that the makeup of aspirin is C9H8O4, are talking headache medicine aspirin? That looks a lot like a hydrocarbon to me! It has carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and that makes it a hydrocarbon, right? Therefore... its combustible... right? And it should have the same byproducts of a regular combustion reaction. Hmmm... idea for an aspirin powered go-kart...

[Scratch-]

I think that if it has oxygen in it, it isn’t a hydrocarbon.

[hmx9123]

Yes, it can burn.  Yes, in a general sense, it is considered a hydrocarbon.  Most organics are, actually.  But no, you won't get anything of performance out of it.  Try burning wood instead.  You can just jam plant matter into a furnace for that matter, and get about the same result.

I actually need to edit my response here... I shouldn't have said 'in a general sense'.  Rather, 'in an incorrect sense'.  I have heard organics in general referred to as hydrocarbons, but strictly speaking, it refers to any compound that is only carbon and hydrogen, which goes from methane and butane to benzene and cubane.  However, most people think of saturated straight chain hydrocarbons like octane and propane when talking about hydrocarbons.

[Corvettaholic]

Don't suppose you know what wood's made out of do you? How do you figure if one particular hydrocarbon would burn better than another? Now that I think about it, hydrocarbons (as the name implies) are just carbon and hydrogen, no oxygen. Does oxygen take away from the effect? I think I remember something from high school chemistry (way back when) that you need a certain ratio of carbon to hydrogen, or something like that.

[Scratch-]

Wood is mostly cellulose, the compound that makes up the cell walls.

[Corvettaholic]

Well yeah, but what is cellulose made of? Some combination of carbon and hydrogen, but if any of you guys have numbers for comparison, like wood to coal to oil, that'd be neat to see. Just want to see what the C and H numbers are for each. If not, I'll see if I have time later tonight to dig it up then I'll post it.

[Scratch-]

I have tried looking it up on a reference website for chemicals but it doesn’t have it, I’ll check around.

[Corvettaholic]

I'll check back later tonight once I get home from doing some self-education in organic chemistry at the bar. If you can't find anything, I have a full work day tomorrow of nothing to do but look for stuff like that  

[Scratch-]

I might look around tomorrow but I have to go soon tonight.

[Corvettaholic]

soon tonight? Its still 4:30pm here. You east coast?

[Scratch-]

Yes, its 8:24 here.