How much oil *could* I make from human blood?

[Ranchoth]

Living in Northern California, I’ve frequently seen “No Blood for Oil!” bumper stickers. Now, being a mad scientist at heart, this quite quickly reminded me of the process of thermal depolymerization, which can create synthetic oil out of waste products…even biomass, such as turkey offal.

That leaves me wondering…using such a process, how much synthetic oil could I get from the blood of an average human? Wikipedia gives the average blood volume of a human as “5 liters, of which 2.7-3 liters is plasma,” if that’s of any help.

After that, how much oil could I get from one full human? (Including blood, if it makes a difference?)

[HMS_Irruncible]

I reckon there wouldn’t be much oil in blood itself. If you’re looking for fuel, what you’d be after is the fat, brains, and guts. It’s what made America great (or something like that, I forget). Oh yeah… the skin too.

[Alex_Dubinsky]

yeah, at least we could turn all the dead Iraqis into something useful

[Alex_Dubinsky]

and no, i think what i said is quite sensitive to all the needlessly dead iraqis

[Sage_Rat]

senses the potential for a lawyer joke

[samclem]

@Alex_Dubinsky

and no, i think what i said is quite sensitive to all the needlessly dead iraqis

Yeah? Well, what you keep doing is polluting General Questions. You just don’t seem to get it. I know you are a paying member, but you’ve been warned repeatedly. You just don’t get it.

I can’t ban you or put you on suspension by myself, but I can send this around the mod/Admin loop. Which I’m doing, and recommending a month-long time out. If you come back and continue this bent, then bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

samclem General Questions Moderator

[Alex_Dubinsky]

So what exactly are the rules of of General Questions? No comments of any kind except direct answers to the questions as stated? Even questions like this? And the rules are to be applied only to me, I presume?

What exactly is your grudge against me, again? That you went so far as to close down this thread with a list of previous threads that asked a similar question because I said in a post that a lot of times it helps everyone (the askers, the answerers, and the pursuit of truth at large) to reanswer questions instead of just referring people to old threads? Don’t tell me it’s about NAMBLA…

[bitizen]

I am not a chemist, and chances are I got some of this wrong, but here’s my best attempt, knowledgeable data/method corrections are more then welcome.

Well according to wikipedia

Anatomy of blood

Blood is composed of several kinds of corpuscles; these formed elements of the blood constitute about 40% of whole blood. The other 60% is blood plasma, a fluid that is the blood’s liquid medium, appearing yellow in color. The normal pH of human arterial blood is approximately 7.40 (normal range is 7.35-7.45). Blood that has a pH below 7.35 is acidic, while blood pH above 7.45 is alkaline. Blood pH along with arterial carbon dioxide tension (PaCO2) and HCO3 readings are helpful in determining the acid-base balance of the body. Blood is about 7% of the human body weight [1], so the average adult has a blood volume of about 5 liters, of which 2.7-3 liters is plasma. The combined surface area of all the erythrocytes in the human anatomy would be roughly 2,000 times as great as the body’s exterior surface.

The corpuscles are:

* Red blood cells or erythrocytes (96%). In mammals, mature red blood cells lack a nucleus and organelles. They contain the blood's hemoglobin and distribute oxygen. The red blood cells (together with endothelial vessel cells and some other cells) are also marked by proteins that define different blood types.
* White blood cells or leukocytes (3.0%), are part of the immune system; they destroy infectious agents.
* Platelets or thrombocytes (1.0%) are responsible for blood clotting (coagulation)

Blood plasma is essentially an aqueous solution containing 96% water, 4% blood plasma proteins, and trace amounts of other materials. Some components are:

So 40% cells plus 4% other equals 44% organic material

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2004/MichaelShmukler.shtml

“Blood.” Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia. 1985: 157. “It has a characteristic odor and a specific gravity between 1.056 and 1.066” 1056 - 1066 kgm3"

so lets low ball it and go with 1056 (any extra fuel is just bonus!) reduce it it too one liter from a thousand (m3 = cubic meters = 1000 liters).

so 1.056 kg for one liter of blood. One liter of water weighs one kilogram. So 100% - 44% organic stuff gives us 56%. However human blood has oceanic salt water levels I believe so…

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/EdwardLaValley.shtml

“Density and Weight.” Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. “Seawater is usually some 3.5 percent heavier than fresh water because it contains about 35 pounds of salts in each 1,000 pounds of water” 1035 kg/m3

So 1.035 per liter of of salt water. Now we need to figure out the 55% of 1.035 to get the mass of the nonorganic blood part and subtract it from the total mass to get our organic mass. Doing the math 1.056kg - 1.035kg * .55 = 0.48675kg of organic stuff per liter of blood.

from the Wiki site

Medical waste
Oil 65 %
Gas 10 %
Carbon solids 5 %
Water 20 %

Since I doubt there’s anything specifically on the net calculated for blood lets go with medical waste. (oil refers to crude oil and gas refers to gaseous things not gasoline) 0.48675 *.6 = 0.1421553375kg of oil from one liter of blood. Not gallons you say? Well it gets hard from there because I don’t know what the density of the out put hydrocarbons are but lets say it’s 90% efficient at converting hydrocarbons to gasoline (I have no way of knowing if it is, some one more knowledgeable please correct just continuing for shits n giggles)

http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_liquids.htm

Gasoline, natural
60 F

711.22
Gasoline, Vehicle
60 F

737.22

So lets say convert it to liters (/1000) and go with a nice round mid value of 720 grams per liter for gasoline. 0.1421553375kg * 5 * .9 = 0.63969901875kg or rounded off in grams 640 grams. 0.63969901875kg / .720 = 0.888470859375 liters. So one human’s blood (with a 90% hydrocarbon to fuel conversion) should give you at around. .888 liters of gas or roughly 0.234 gallons of gas.

[Happy_Clam]

How inefficient! People talk about empires being built on blood, but they never stop to consider the practicalities of such.

Would it be simpler to use the brains, which I understand are 90% lipid?

[Praetor]

@bitizen

However human blood has oceanic salt water levels I believe so…

Human blood is significantly more dilute than oceanic salt water. If blood were the same concentration as salt water, then you could safely drink salt water. The salt concentration in blood is ~9g/L*, which is far lower than your value of ~35g/L for salt water.

*From http://www.chemcases.com/gatorade/gatorade10.htm