A team of researchers in Illinois have made a groundbreaking discovery which is bound to change the petroleum industry, allowing products such as gasoline to be transported up to 30 times faster. The new results contradict a theory that was considered to be true for almost 80 years.

A Surprising Revelation

In the late 1940s, two Princeton University professors, Henry Eyring and Walter Kauzmann, elaborated a theory that all alkanes, the main components of petroleum and gas, have a universal viscosity near their melting points. The theory would be cited more than 3,000 times, influencing both science and industrial practices around the world.

However, the effort of a team from Illinois has revealed that alkanes can still surprise scientists. Led by Yang Zhang, assistant professor at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the scientists were able to catch the molecular movements of alkanes on tape.

This showed that their thickness could actually be reduced quite a lot, thus, allowing the substance to flow much faster.

"Alkane is basically a chain of carbon atoms. By changing one carbon atom in the backbone of an alkane molecule, we can make it flow 30 times faster," noted Zhang.

Although impressive in itself, the discovery becomes even more impressive when thinking about its practical uses. Gasoline or crude oil could cross the United States 30 times faster than they do now, facilitating the processes of various industries.

But not only companies would benefit from this process, as there are clear benefits for regular people as well. Gas tanks would be filled in a matter of seconds, reducing queues and allowing people to use their time more efficiently.

Alkanes And The Odd-Even Effect

Although the applications of the discovery may be easy to understand, the scientists had to resort to state- of-the-art technology and hard work in order to reach the results. However, the entire research is actually based on the odd-even effect in solid alkanes, which is taught in most introductory organic chemistry classes.

More specifically, the difference in the periodic packing of odd- and even-numbered alkane solids results in odd-even variation of their densities and melting points. However, no one expected for this effect to also be present in liquid alkanes.

With the help of their cutting edge cameras, adapted to very small objects and very high speeds, the researchers were able to observe the molecules and reach these intriguing results, which seem to contradict everything that was believed before.

The results were published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, one of the most prestigious publications in the area of chemistry and will probably lead to the rewriting of some manuals that are still not up to date with the discovery.