Tag: petroleum and natural gas

In the United States, the petroleum industry began in 1859 when Edwin Drake found oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania.

Refining of petroleum requires the separation of its components into different fractions. The hydrocarbon chains that make up petroleum have the different basic carbon chain (different number of $Cs$ in the parent).
Hence, the statement $I$ is true but statement $II$ is false.

Now a days due to development of different technological processes modern petroleum refineries process as much as 800,000 to 900,000 barrels (127,000 to 143,000 cubic meters) per day of crude oil.

A fractional column is an essential item used in the distillation of liquid mixtures so as to separate the mixture into its component parts, or fractions, based on the differences in volatilities. Industrial fractionating columns have outlets at intervals up the column so that multiple products having different boiling ranges may be withdrawn from a column distilling a multi-component feed stream. The lightest products with the lowest boiling points exit from the top of the columns and the heaviest products with the highest boiling points exit from the bottom.

Tetraethyl lead $(CH _3CH _2) _4 Pb$ is a petroleum additive. TEL is produced by reacting chloroethane with a sodium–lead alloy:
 $ 4 NaPb + 4 CH _3CH _2Cl\rightarrow (CH _3CH _2) _4Pb + 4NaCl + 3Pb$
The product is recovered by steam distillation, leaving a sludge of lead and sodium chloride. TEL is a viscous colorless liquid. Because TEL is charge neutral and contains an exterior of alkyl groups, it is highly lipophilic and soluble in petrol.

By-products obtained from processing petroleum in industries are fertilisers, synthetic rubber, synthetic fibres, medicines, vaseline, lubricants, wax, soap and cosmetics.

Liquefied Petroleum Gas or LPG (also called Autogas) consists mainly of propane, propylene, butane, and butylene in various mixtures.It is produced as a by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining. The components of LPG are gases and will evaporate at normal temperatures and pressures, as a result it is stored in pressurised steel bottles.  Unlike natural gas, LPG is heavier than air, and thus will flow along floors and tend to settle in low spots, such as basements.Such accumulations can cause explosion hazards.

The most common method of refining crude is the process of fractional distillation. This involves heating crude oil to about 350 degrees Celsius,to turn it into a mixture of gases. These are piped into a tall cylinder, known as a fractional tower. The higher the gas rises in the tower, the lower the temperature becomes. Petrol or gasoline, condenses out at around 110 degrees celsius, while petroleum gas is drawn off at the top. The distilled liquid from each level contains a mixture of alkanes, alkenes, and aromatic hydrocarbons with similar properties, and requires further refinement and processing to select specific molecules. A process called cracking is used to produce more of the lower molecular weight hydrocarbons from higher ones.

The percentage of compounds in petroleum are