“Fuel is mostly hydrogen H and Carbon C in some combination.
When burning, it combines with oxygen O and makes CO2 and H2O, which together are heavier than the fuel was.”
Dammit, had I thought about that for a second, that would have been the obvious answer. That is my old engineer punishment for spouting a comment without thinking about it, while drinking...though I have an excuse as I just got off a 29 hour plane journey so my brain is mush
Its in the article itself, if you follow the links and comments....excerpt below
The carbon has a mass of 12 and makes up a certain percentage of the jet fuel mass (you can find out using science you learned in 9th grade)
Oxygen has a mass of 16
Since there are 2 oxygen atoms for every carbon atom in CO2. That means the ratio of mass between those is 12 : 32
So if you burn 12 grams of carbon. You end up with 44 grams of CO2. Does it make sense?
there are about a little more than 2x as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms in jet fuel. But since hydrogen weighs only 1 amu. the ratio of mass between carbon and hydrogen in the jet fuel is 12 : 2
the hydrogen reacts with air to produce water
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