Making crude oil useful

Question 1

Disadvantages of crude oil

Answer 1

• Finite resource
• Will eventually run out
• Non-renewable (cannot be made again)

Question 2

What are fossil fuels?

Answer 2

• Non-renewable fuels
• Take a very long time to make
• Used up faster than formed
• Examples: coal, gas, crude oil

Question 3

How is crude oil separated?

Answer 3

-By factional distillation:
>Oil is heated until parts of it have boiled
>The parts (fractions) are cooled
>Liquids collected

Question 4

What are the fractions from crude oil?

Answer 4

• LPG
• petrol
• diesel
• paraffin
• heating oil
• fuel oils
• bitumen

Question 5

Why does fractional distillation work?

Answer 5

• Each fraction has a different boiling point
• Have different chain lengths (different molecular forces)
• Larger molecules (e.g. bitumen) have longer chains and stronger forces so are difficult to separate (high boiling points)

Question 6

Uses of crude oil?

Answer 6

transport fuels, plastics, medicines, fabrics & dyes

Question 7

What are crude oils made from?

Answer 7

• Bodies of plankton compressed over 260-650 million years

- Oils called hydrocarbons (made up of molecules containing carbon & hydrogen only)

Question 8

Advantages of crude oil

Answer 8

• Important natural resource

- Lots of uses (fuels, plastics, medicines, fabrics & dyes)

Question 9

Where do fractions with higher boiling points exit the fractional distillation tower?

Answer 9

At the bottom of the tower

Question 10

Where does crude oil enter the tower for fractional distillation?

Answer 10

At the bottom of the tower

Question 11

Where is the tower/column coldest?

Answer 11

At the top

Question 12

What do the fractions obtained from fractional distillation contain?

Answer 12

• Mixtures of hydrocarbons

- Many substances with similar boiling points

Question 13

What is the name of the oil that does not boil during fractional distillation?

Answer 13

Bitumen:

• It sinks as a thick liquid to the bottom of the tower
• Used to make tar for roads
• Very high boiling point

Question 14

Problems in extracting crude oil?

Answer 14

• Large area taken over (drilling & pumping oil to surface)
• Environmental damage
• Oil rigs are dangerous (in sea)
• Can cause oil slicks (harm wildlife & expensive to clean up)

Question 15

What is used to crack (break down) liquid paraffin?

Answer 15

High temperature and a catalyst

Question 16

What can cracking make more of?

Answer 16

Petrol

Question 17

What is an oil slick?

Answer 17

Leak from a tanker trying to extract oil at sea

-Can pollute beaches, seas and kill animals

Question 18

What does cracking do?

Answer 18

Turns the surplus long-chain hydrocarbons into useful short-chain hydrocarbons

Question 19

Process of cracking?

Answer 19

> Long chain hydrocarbons heated at high temps over a catalyst
Splint into smaller molecules (E.g. petrol)

Question 20

What are hydrocarbons from crude oil called?

Answer 20

Alkanes

Question 21

What does a large alkane become when it is cracked?

Answer 21

A smaller alkane and an alkene

Question 22

How does industry match the demand for petrol with the supply from crude oil?

Answer 22

By building expensive industrial cracking plants near refineries to break down large hydrocarbon molecules into smaller useful ones, this produces more petrol.