C1- Carbon Chemistry Flashcards
What does **finite resources **mean?
Are no longer being made or are being made extremely slowly such as fossil fuels
What is a non-renewable resource?
Are being used up faster than they are being formed, such as fossil fuels
What are the difficulties associated with the finite resource of crude oil?
- all readily extractable resources will be used up in the future
- finding replacements
What is crude oil made up of?
A mixture of many types of oil, which are all hydrocarbons
What is a hydrocarbon?
Made up of molecules containing **carbon **and hydrogen ONLY
Where does crude oil get separated?
In a fractional distillation column
How does the **temperature gradient **work in the fractional distillation column?
- Oil that doesn’t boil sinks as bitumen, a thick liquid at the bottom with a very high boiling point.
- Other fractions boil and their gases rise up the column
- The column is cooler at the top, so fractions with lower boiling points exit at the top
What are the forces between molecules?
- Forces between molecules are **intermolecular forces **and are broken during boiling
- Liquid separates as gas molecules
How do larger molecules get separated?
They have strong forces of attraction, so a lot of energy is needed to break the forces between molecules, so they have high boiling points
How do smaller molecules get separated?
They have weaker attractive forces and are easily separated. Less energy is needed to break the forces between the molecules and have low boiling points
How does **transporting **crude oil cause problems?
- Oil slicks can damage birds’ feathers and cause death
- Clean-up operations use detergents that can damage wildlife
What are the **political **problems with extracting crude oil?
- UK is dependent on oil and gas from politically unstable countries
- Oil-producing nations set up high prices and cause problems for the future supply of non-oil producing nations
What does the process **cracking **do?
Turn large alkane molecules into smaller alkane molecules and **alkene **molecules
Why is the alkene molecule useful?
It has a double bond, which makes it useful for making polymers
Why does cracking help oil manufacturers?
It helps match supply with demand for products like petrol
What are the factors influencing the choice of fuel?
- energy value
- availability
- storage
- cost
- toxicity
- pollution caused
- ease of use
Why is the amount of fossil fuels being burnt increasing?
Populations are increasing
What are the concerns of the increase in fossil fuels?
More carbon dioxide emissions could result in the speeding up of Global Warming
What is the equation for **complete **combustion?
hydrocarbon + oxygen → carbon dioxide + water
What is the equation for **incomplete **combustion?
fuel + oxygen → carbon monoxide + carbon + water
What are the differences between complete and incomplete combustion?
- more **energy **is released during complete combustion
- **toxic **gas (carbon monoxide) and soot (carbon) is made during incomplete combustion
What is clean air made up of?
- 78% nitrogen
- 21% oxygen
- 1% - only 0.035% carbon dioxide
Why do the percentages only change by a small amount?
There is a balance between the processes that use up and make both CO2 and O2. As the carbon cycle shows
How has the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air increased?
- deforestation (less photosynthesis can take place)
- increased population (world’s energy requirements increase, so more factories producing pollution)
What formed the atmosphere?
Gases escaping the interior of the Earth
How did the Earth get oxygen?
The plants that could photosynthesise removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and added oxygen
What supposedly caused oceans?
The water vapour condensed to form oceans and the carbon dioxide dissolved in the water
What does sulfur dioxide cause?
When dissolved in water, it forms acid rain that damages wildlife and limestones buildings/ statues