Fractional Distillation

• Crude oil is made up mainly of hydrocarbons.
• 1. Crude oil is heated in a chamber 
  2. Turns into a gas
  3. Put into fractionating column which is hot at the bottom
  4. The gases rise up the column
  5. When they reach a region with a lower temperature than their boiling point they condense.
  6. The hydrocarbons with the longest chains have the highest boiling points so they condense fastest.
  7. The shorter hydrocarbon chains have low boiling points so rise to the top of the column before condensing.
• In fractional distillation some hydrocarbons are so short that they stay gases the whole time.
• A feedstock is a raw material used to provide reactants for an industrial reaction.
• A petrochemical is a substance made from crude oil, via chemical reactions.
• The hydrocarbons in crude oil are feedstocks and the things we take from them are petrochemicals.