Uses of crackling of crude oil

• Crude oil has various uses

  • fuel for transport- diesal, oil, kerosene
  • petrochemical industry uses crude oil to make new compounds polymers,solvents, detergents
• Cracking- splitting up
• • Short hydrocarbons are flammable so make good fuels and are high demand
  • long chain hydrocarbons form thick gloopy liquids and are used for tar
  • alot of longer alkane molecules produced are turned into smaller more useful ones through cracking
• Cracking makes other type of hydrocarbon called Alkenes which are a lot more reactive and are used as starting material to make other things
• Bromine water can be used to test for alkenes:

  • when orange bromine water is added to an Alkane no reaction will happen
  • if added to alkene it makes the liquid turn colourless
• Different methods of cracking

  1. cracking is thermal decomposition
  2. heat long hydrocarbons to vaporise then
  3. then vapour is passed over hot catalysts
  4. long chain split apart
• Need to be able to balance