Products from Oil Flashcards
What is cracking?
The process of breaking large hydrocabons down into smaller hydrocarbons
How can cracking be done?
In two ways:
- By heating a mixture of hydrocarbon vapours and steam to a very high temperature
- By passing hydrocarbon vapours over a hot catalyst
What happens during cracking?
Thermal decomposition reactions produce a mixture of smaller molecules.
These smaller molecules are alkanes and alkenes
What are alkanes with smaller molecules useful for?
Fuels
What is the general formula for alkanes and what are they?
Saturated hydrocarbons
C<em>n</em>H2n+2
What is the general formula for alkenes and what are they?
Unsaturated hydrocarbons - they contain a double bond
CnH2n
What can bromine water be used to test for?
Alkenes - they turn it from orange to colourless
How can different mixtures of alkenes and alkanes be produced?
By using different hydrocarbons
By changing the conditions of the reaction
What are plastics made from?
Polymers
What are polymers?
Very large molecules made from lots of the same very small molecule (monomers) joined together
How are polymers made?
Polymerisation (the reaction of monomers to make polymers)
What happens during the polymerisation reaction to produce polymers?
The double bond in each of the alkenes are broken and used to join monomers together in long chains
Draw a diagram showing the polymerisation of ethene
What is formed when propene is polymerised?
Poly(propene)
Give some examples of uses of plastics
- Bags
- Bottles
- Containers
- Toys
- Furniture