ABSTRACT
The ethanol/gasoline fuel mixture passes into the carburetor to be mixed with air and then ignited in the car’s engine cylinders to propel the piston to drive the engine’s mechanical drive train. The overall energy balance dealing with this involves examining inputs and outputs of potential energy, kinetic energy, pressure-volume (pv) energy, internal energy, heat, and work. The system may lose or gain heat reversibly (in small steps that can be reversed) or in large irreversible steps such as when fuel and oxygen react.
