Petrol is only one of the fractions obtained from the fractional distillation of petroleum.
State the name of two other fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum. Give a
use for each of these fractions.
Answers
Explanation:
Crude oil is the remains of an ancient biomass consisting mainly of plankton that was buried in mud and subjected to heat and pressure that slowly end up as a yellow to brown liquid which may form pools or be absorbed into porous rocks like shale.
Crude oil is an important raw material, and the source of many useful substances such as fuels and a chemical feedstock for the petrochemical industry, from which endless products, including plastics and drugs, are eventually manufactured, BUT, it is a finite resource, and won't last forever !
Many useful materials on which modern life depends are produced by the petrochemical industry, such as fuels, solvents, lubricants, polymers, detergents and host of other specialised chemicals - even drugs for medicinal formulations.
When initially pumped out of the ground crude oil is a complex mixture of a very large number of compounds most of which are hydrocarbons, molecules composed of hydrogen and carbon atoms only and many of them are hydrocarbons called alkanes (a particular series of organic compounds, that compounds based on carbon - details in other sections).
The hydrocarbons may consist of molecules based on chains of carbon atoms (mostly 1 to 40), sometimes linear ('straight') and sometimes branched (a side-chain of C atoms) and others are based on rings of carbon atoms.
Examples ...
Straight chain or linear alkane hydrocarbons: alkanes structure and naming (c) doc b,
Branched alkane hydrocarbons: , alkanes structure and naming (c) doc b
Hydrocarbon ring compounds alkanes structure and naming (c) doc b, alkanes structure and naming (c) doc b, (c) doc b,