Making crude oil useful

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  • Created by: ryan
  • Created on: 14-01-13 17:12
What are fossil fuels?
Fossil fuels are finite resources because they are no longer being made, or are being made very slowly. They are non-renewable resources because they are being used up faster than they are being made.
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What is crude oil?
Crude oil is a mixture of many types of oil, which are all 'hydrocarbons'.
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What is a hydrocarbon?
A hydrocarbon is made up of ONLY hydrogen and carbon molecules.
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What happens in a fractional distillation column?
Crude oil is heated at the bottom of a fractionating column, oil that doesn't boil sinks to the bottom, this is known as bitumen, it has a very high boiling point. Fractions with the lower boiling points exit at the top.
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How can crude oil be seperated?
The forces between molecules are intermolecular forces and are broken during boiling, the molecules separate from each other as molecules of gas.
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What happens to larger and smaller molecules after being boiled in a fractional distillation column?
Large molecules, like bitumen, have strong forces of attraction, a lot of energy is needed to break the forces between the molecules. The smaller molecules, like petrol, have weak attractive forces, and are easily separated.
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What are problems in extracting Crude oil?
Transporting oil can cause problems, spills can damage wildlife. There may be political problems, UKs dependent on getting oil from politically unstable countries High in demand and there are conflicts on whether to use it for petrochemicals or fuel
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What is Cracking?
Cracking is a process that turns large alkane molecules into smaller alkane and alkene molecules. An alkene molecule has a double bond, which makes it useful for making polymers. Cracking also helps oil demand for products like petrol.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What is crude oil?

Back

Crude oil is a mixture of many types of oil, which are all 'hydrocarbons'.

Card 3

Front

What is a hydrocarbon?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What happens in a fractional distillation column?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

How can crude oil be seperated?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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