Crude Oil Flashcards
What is crude oil
It is a thick dark brown liquid made from extremely old dead animals. It is useless as it comes exactly out of the ground, and needs to be broken down into more useful hydrocarbons
What is fractional distillation
It is a way of turning crude oil into more useful hydrocarbons
How does fractional distillation work
Crude oil is paced into a fractional distillation chamber as a gas and the base is extremely hot. The gas will rise until it cools and they will always cool at different rates, and fall off at different layers, which separates the different hydrocarbons into the correct sections
What is cracking
It is the process of breaking down long alkanes into short alkanes and alkanes
How is cracking done
It is where the long alkane is placed over a hot Catalyst
What trends are there in the properties of crude oil and the size of the molecule
The more hydrocarbons there are the:
Viscosity increases
Boiling point increases
Flammability decreases
Why does the larger molecule have a higher boiling point
As there are more particles the intermolecular forces are stronger and more resistant making it harder to break those bonds
