organic chemistry

• Crude oil is a finite resource that is found in the Earth's crust. It is the remains of organisms that lived and died millions of years ago - mainly plankton which was buried in mud.
• Crude oil is an important source of:

  • fuels such as petrol, diesel, kerosene, heavy fuel oil and liquefied petroleum gases
  • feedstock for the petrochemical industry
• A feedstock is a raw material used to provide reactants for an industrial reaction.
• A petrochemical is a substance made from crude oil using chemical reactions. For example, ethene is produced from crude oil. It is used as feedstock to make poly(ethene), a polymer
• Fractional distillation is when a mixture is separated into its components based on their boiling points. Fractional distillation is used to separate crude oil into its various fractions.
• Alkenes have at least one double bond between two carbon atoms. They can be saturated or unsaturated depending on whether they contain all their possible C-H bonds.
• Saturated alkenes are called olefins because they contain a double bond. Unsaturated alkenes are called alkenes because they contain a double bond.
• The fraction with the lowest boiling point will be at the top of the column (the vapour phase) and the fraction with the highest boiling point will be at the bottom of the column (the liquid phase).