Friday, March 02, 2007
Silicon or Silicone? An Elementary mistake by the AA and BBC? (Daily Telegraph et al.)
Reporting here on the claims of fuel contamination being made by consumers the BBC says,
"... an AA source told the BBC traces of silicon have been found in petrol taken from the cars."
Silicon? Would that dissolve in petrol? A Silicone dissolved in petrol I could understand and the result of burning a silicone is likely to result in Silicon Dioxide (glass / sand / quartz), in any quantity that could be bad for engine performance.
So is it silicon, or have the AA and the BBC got things elementally wrong?
Update:
Daily Telegraph has just caught up with some of the science but not the spelling.
Silicon
Then Siliconee. Nearly there! Now just stop calling it an element.
Third attempt, back to silicon.
Starts with silicon, corrects to silicone in stories for Friday.
