The Oil IndustryProduced by Peter Hollamby.This presentation includes Flash animations running within PowerPoint. For this to work the following will need to be installed on the PC: Macromedia Flash from www.macromedia.com/downloads/ Swiff Player from www.globfx.com/products/swfplayer/

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Left-click the mouse once to startThe Oil Industry

It is composed of a very large mixture of hydrocarbons It was formed from the remains of sea animals and plants that died and were buried millions of years ago.

Hydrocarbon molecules

Oil refining involves the separation of these hydrocarbons into mixtures (fractions) which are very important and extremely useful.They are separated byfractional distillationLiquids in a mixture can be separated if they have different boiling points.

Because there are so many hydrocarbon molecules in crude oil, the fractions contain groups of molecules will similar molecular masses.

Fractional Distillation in the school laboratory

Can you name the parts???????Click on each question mark to reveal the answer or on the buttons to move onignore this test

???thermometer??next guessignore this test

????thermometer pocket?next guessignore this test

????Liebig condenser?next guessignore this test

????Receiver adaptor?next guessignore this test

????fractionating column?next guessignore this test

????round bottomed flask?next slidenext guess

The raw material (i.e. - Crude oil) is heated in a furnace and then passed into the lower part of the column The majority of the fractions in the oil are already in a gaseous state when they enter the column

The hydrocarbon vapours rise quickly up the column until they reach the tray where the temperature is slightly below their boiling point. Here they condense and become a liquid again on the tray. This is how the different fractions are separated

They are then drawn off by pipes from their respective trays. This is a continual process as more hot crude oil flows into the column Residue is left over and flows out of the bottom of the column.Each fraction has its own use. In the case of crude oil no fraction is wasted

The heaviest compounds fall to the bottom of the column. These compounds have the highest molecular masses and are the least volatile.The most volatile fractions. (i.e. - those with lowest boiling point) come out of the top of the column and are gases, as these have very low molecular masses (e.g. methane).

Covering this hole is a piece of metal which prevents gases being forced up through the next tray, without first bubbling through some of the liquid which has collected in that tray.This is called a bubble cap. There is a hole in each tray in the fractionating column.

To watch a movie on fractional distillation, click on the box below

Uses of the products

fractions

some products obtained from the fractions

Click on the links below to go to some useful web-sites for fractional distillation and related topics. Then press F11 to set full screen.www.schoolscience.co.uk/petroleum/

www.schoolscience.co.uk/content/4/chemistry/fossils/p8.html

www.dit.ie/DIT/science/chemistry/rsccomp/competition00/distillation/topframe.html

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/a/aa070401a.htmAll web links checked Oct 2004