Cracking Crude Oil

Cracking Crude Oil

• After the fractional distillation of crude oil you are left with unuseful hydrocarbons
• These are long-chain hydrocarbons which form thick and gloopy liquids like tar which aren't much use to us
• We have more use for short-chain hydrocarbons which form more useful products like petrol
• We solve this problem by a process called catalytic cracking
• This is where we take the long-chain hydrocarbon and break it into a smaller alkane and an alkene, using heat and…