Unit 7: Organic Chemistry

• Crude Oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, which are long chains of hydrogen and carbon atoms.
• alkanes contain a single chain of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms bonded along the sides

  CnH2n+2 - molecular formular for alkanes
• Fractional Distillation: separates crude oil into fractions (a group of hydrocarbons with boiling points within a specific range)
• Cracking: A chemical reaction that breaks long hydrocarbon chains (not very useful) into shorter ones (more useful)

  eg. C20H42 -> C12H26 + C8H16