The project was worked out by the students of the chemical technology class (fourth grade) of
Masaryk secondary chemical school in Prague

• Introduction
• Factors leading to the birth of the project - selection of the topic
• Project structure
• Questionnaire for Prague car drivers
• Questionnaire evaluation
• Car fuels
• Laboratory tests of fuels
• Fuel transport
• Car traffic in the Czech Republic and in Prague
• Environmental impact of car traffic - emissions
• Measuring automobile emissions
• Car oils
• Coolants and brake fluids, cleansing and other products
• Storage batteries
• Survey of other materials
• Protection of cars against corrosion
• Cars as waste
• Conclusion - project evaluation
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Sponzors
  



Automobile is one of the typical symbols of the 20th century. First cars with spark-ignition engines were manufactured in Germany in the nineties of the last century, and are associated with the names of Benz and Daimler. The first car with a spark-ignition engine manufactured in our country, which at that time belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, appeared 100 years ago, in 1897. Within one century, automobiles underwent a staggering technical development and are today an indispensable part of the lifestyle in industrially more advanced parts of the world. Moreover, strong tendencies to increasing the private transport appear also in less developed countries.

Who of us would not like to sit down behind the driving wheel of a beautiful fast car and have the heady feeling of driving a technically perfect machine? It is marvellous to be independent of bus or train timetables and to decide for oneself where and when to go. Automobile manufacturers world-wide offer ever new and more perfect cars. The automotive industry with its associated industries provides jobs for millions of people. Trucks and lorries transport vast amounts of raw materials and goods of all kinds along the roads. All this can be viewed as the sunny side of the development of motoring.

The coin, however, has also the other face. There are too many cars so that, instead of affording us more freedom, they rob us of it, especially as concerns their environmental impacts. The cities are choked with cars, columns of cars crawl through the streets at snail’s pace, the air becomes unfit to breathe, the noise is ever-present, and the statistics on traffic accidents mount threateningly. When a car has finished its service life, it becomes a troublesome waste.

Our project does not aspire to solve all these problems; we merely wanted to learn in a "hands-on" way how the chemical industry participates in the manufacture of cars and their operation, and what could be improved and solved through the co-operation of two major industry branches.

 



1. Spontaneous interest of students who took part in the 1997 contest, in the work on a new project

2. Continuity with the last year’s project "Tyres"

3. On graduating from the college and coming of age, all students in the group want to get a driving licence and are therefore naturally interested in the subject

4. A large increase in the number of cars in the Czech Republic, in particular in Prague, and associated problems

5. The continuing operation of many old cars - for many people the purchase of a new, environmentally more acceptable car is impossible for economical reasons

6. An unbearable situation with air pollution in the city of Prague, especially in the centre of the town where our school is situated

7. The students realize that chemical industry is the source of production of materials necessary for manufacturing cars, as well as the necessary fuels and other fluids needed for the operation of automobiles.

8. Further inspiration was a series of articles in the 1997 volume of the journal Chemický prùmysl (Chemical Industry) devoted to advances in refining technologies and to automobile emissions.

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