12. Alkanes Flashcards
Describe petroleum
- A mixture consisting mainly of alkane hydrocarbons
Describe a petroleum fraction
- Mixture of hydrocarbons with a similar chain length and boiling point range
Describe how fractional distillation of crude oil takes place
- Oil is pre-heated and vaporised then passed into column.
- The vapour rises, cools and condenses at different heights
- Products are siphoned off for different uses
Describe the temperature gradient in a fractioning column
- The temperature of column decreases upwards
- (Hotter at bottom, cooler at top)
What does the separation of crude oil depend on?
- The boiling point of the molecule
- Hence the size of the molecule
- The larger the molecule, the larger the van der Waals forces
Similar molecules (size, bp, mass) condense together
Small comlecules condense at the top at lower temps - big molecules condense at the bottom at higher temps
- This is a physical process involving the splitting of weak van der wall forces between molecules
- products with short carbon chains have a lower b.p. meaning they rise higher up the column before reaching their boiling point, therefore they are collected at the top of the column
Products with long carbon chains have higher boiling points meaning they don’t rise very far up the column before reaching their boiling pount
They condense and are collected at the bottom of the fractionating column
The compounds collected from the fractionating column are then broken down further via method of braking
- Fuel gas (bottled)
- petrol / gasoline - engine
- naptha - chemicals
- kerosene - jet fuel
- diesel oil - engines
- fuel oil - heating
- lubrication oil
- bitumen - road surfacing
vacuum distillation unit
- heavy residues from the fractionating column are distilled again under a vacuum
- Lowering the pressure over a liquid will lower its boiling point
- vacuum distillation allows heavier fractions to be further separated without high tempersuates which could break them down
What is fractional distiallion used for?
- To separate liquids with similar boiling points
Describe how fractional distillation works in the laboratory
Heat the flask, with a Bunsen burner or electric mantle
* This causes vapours of all the components in the mixture to be produced.
* Vapours pass up the fractionating column.
* The vapour of the substance with the lower boiling
point reaches the top of the fractionating column
first.
* The thermometer should be at or below the boiling
point of the most volatile substance.
* The vapours with higher boiling points condense
back into the flask.
* Only the most volatile vapour passes into the
condenser.
* The condenser cools the vapours and condenses to
a liquid and is collected.
Define cracking
- Conversion of large hydrocarbons to smaller hydrocarbon molecules by breakage of C-C bonds
High Mr alkanes –> smaller Mr alaknes + alkenes + (hydrogen)
What are the economic reasons fro cracking
The petroleum fractions with shorter C chains (e.g. petrol and naphtha) are in more demand than larger fractions.
* To make use of excess larger hydrocarbons and to supply demand for shorter ones, longer hydrocarbons are cracked.
* The products of cracking are more valuable than the starting materials (e.g. ethene used to make poly(ethene), branched alkanes for motor fuels, etc.
The petroleum fractions with shorter C chains (e.g. petrol and naphtha) are in more demand than larger fractions.
* To make use of excess larger hydrocarbons and to supply demand for shorter ones, longer hydrocarbons are cracked.
* The products of cracking are more valuable than the starting materials (e.g. ethene used to make poly(ethene), branched alkanes for motor fuels, etc.)
What kind of process is cracking
- Chemical process involving splitting of strong covalent bonds so requires high temps