What is Carburetion? Definition of Carburetion, Carburetion Meaning and Concept

In automobile mechanics, it refers to the process of preparing the mixture of gasoline and air that is carried out in the part called carburettor thanks to an electronic injection system. It consists of spraying, vaporizing and mixing the fuel.

In an engine, carburation combines the proper proportion of oxygen with a gaseous form of a fossil fuel, such as natural gas or gasoline, so that it can burn. Internal combustion engines work by igniting fuel that has been sprayed into a fine vapor and mixed with air. This mixture, called an emulsion, will burn with the correct amount of energy to power the motor.

Carburization generally involves all of these stages, from vaporizing gasoline to letting air in and finally moving the mixture to where it can burn.

Carburetion is responsible for allowing an engine to run at its optimum level, whether it is cranking, running at full throttle, or idling. Any combustion engine, such as a lawn mower, chainsaw, or car, must use some type of carburetion.

If there is too much fuel or too little oxygen, the engine runs "rich" and wastes fuel, produces smoke, generates too much heat, or ruins engine parts. If there is too little fuel or too much air, the engine runs "lean" and can sputter, stall, or cause engine damage.

The carburetion process usually takes place inside a carburetor, but can even be demonstrated with a set of household chemicals. In a carburetor, there should be a central mixing chamber where air meets fuel.

An opening, a needle valve, pushes the fuel through a hole so small that it sprays into that chamber in tiny droplets. The other opening, a vacuum or suction valve, uses air pressure to control the amount of air entering the chamber, called metering.

The atomized gasoline, suspended in the total volume of air, leaves through a wide tube to another chamber where a spark will ignite it.

The exact amounts of air and fuel depend on the pressure of the surrounding air, the type of fuel, the fineness of the gaseous particles, and whether the engine has settings for faster, slower, or idle.

In older car models that use a traditional carburetor, that ratio is around 15 parts of air to one part of fuel. Other motors, such as those in a gas leaf blower, do not have variable speeds; therefore they require a simpler carburetion that does not represent a little more or less fuel.

Carburetion in the car

At the moment in which the spark jumps in the explosion chamber of a vehicle, the combustion of the mixture between air and gasoline begins, that is, the reaction between hydrogen and carbon takes place, which are the main components of gasoline, with the oxygen present in the atmospheric air.

This combustion will be complete in the event that all the hydrogen and all the carbon have been combined with the oxygen, obtaining as the only products water vapor and carbon dioxide, without having a presence in the exhaust gases of unburned products, such as free oxygen, carbon monoxide or some hydrocarbons.

For this combustion to be complete, both components, both air and gasoline, need to be introduced into the cylinder in a specific weight ratio, this ratio is known as the stoichiometric ratio.

By knowing the exact number of hydrogen atoms and carbon atoms in 1 kg of gasoline, you can calculate the exact number of oxygen molecules that are needed for complete combustion.

The carburetor is the element that doses this mixture, but its mission is very complex and it is difficult to achieve the stoichiometric relationship between air and gasoline. The characteristics in the manufacture of the engines have a high importance in the carburetion, since the length, the diameter or the curves in the pipes for the admission of gasoline cause anomalies in their distribution.