How does gasoline turn into exhaust?
Moment of Um
American Public Media
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2025
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lots of cars, trucks and buses are powered by gasoline. You put the gasoline in a little hole on the side of the vehicle, it powers the engine and then it comes out of the tailpipe as exhaust fumes. But what’s going on inside that engine? And how does gas turn into exhaust anyway? We asked chemistry professor Dr. Josie Nardo to help us find the answer.
Got a question that’s really exhausting you? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll steeryou toward the answer!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | From the brains behind brains on, this is the Moment of Um. |
| 0:15.1 | Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Doug the school bus driver. |
| 0:27.9 | Um. APM Studios. I'm Doug the school bus driver. I've been driving this school bus for the past 30 years, |
| 0:34.3 | and I know for a fact I have the best job in the world. I loved school when I was a kid, my teachers, |
| 0:38.3 | the fresh new pencil smell at the beginning of the school year, but especially the school bus. |
| 0:40.3 | Riding back and forth to school was my favorite. |
| 0:42.3 | It's when I got to hang out with my friends, trade snacks from our lunches, and sit on those |
| 0:47.3 | brown vinyl seats that stick to the back of your legs. |
| 0:50.3 | Ah, there's nothing like it. |
| 0:53.3 | So when I grew up, I decided to become a school bus driver. The only |
| 0:57.1 | thing I don't love about my school bus is the smelly exhaustumes that come out of the back. |
| 1:01.7 | The exhaust makes my nose itch and sometimes... |
| 1:04.8 | It makes me sneeze. Say, where to exhaust fumes come from anyway? |
| 1:13.7 | I know it has something to do with burning gasoline, but I'm not sure what. |
| 1:17.1 | Oliver was wondering about this, too. |
| 1:19.1 | So I found an expert who knows a lot about this. |
| 1:33.9 | So it's just vented by products of the combustion reaction that makes your car work. |
| 1:37.9 | I'm Josie andardo at the Ohio State University. |
| 1:40.2 | I'm a new assistant professor. |
| 1:48.0 | Chemistry is a lot of things from our perspective as people who do research is that it's the science that kind of looks at how energy changes in our everyday lives. Generally speaking, |
| 1:54.0 | like you have gasoline, right? And gasoline is consisting of hydrocarbon, so it's carbon and hydrogen |
| 2:00.0 | bonds together. Essentially, like, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.