The Refining Process
10. What is the most common way to separate petroleum into various components? (The most common process is to use the different boiling temperatures of liquids to separate them.)
11. Watch the video: Energy Policy: Foreign Oil Sources. Who is the fastest growing user of oil? (China)
Fractional Distillation
Step 1: ________ the mixture with ______________ boiling points. (Heat, different)
Step 2: The mixture ______________, forming gases. (boils)
Step 3: The ____________ enters the bottom of a long column filled with ___________ or ___________. (vapor, trays, plates.)
- What are the holes in the trays for?
- What do the trays help collect?
- Where is it hot in the column? ____ Where is it cold?____
Step 4: The vapor _____________ in the column (rises)
Step 5: What happens to the vapor as it rises? (It cools)
Step 6: (a) when does vapor condense? (when it reaches the height where the boiling point of the liquid is equal to the temperature inside of the column)
(b) What does condense mean? (gas vapor changes into a liquid)
(c) Where do substances with the highest boiling point condense? (lower in the column)
Step 7: What do the trays collect? (the different liquid fractions of the mixture)
Step 8: What happens to the liquid fractions? (they may be cooled even more and then put into storage tanks, or they could be processed further.)
12. Watch the animated diagram: The crude oil flows into the ________ (boiler) where it is heated until it vaporizes. It is then sent to the _________ _________ (distillation column) where it is heated until it vaporizes. The residual is the first to condense with ______(80)carbons (the heaviest molecules condense first.) The last to condense is _____ (gas) with only ___ (4) carbons.
13. How do oil companies make enough gasoline without continuously distilling large amounts of crude oil? (they use chemical processes to turn some of the other fractions into gasoline.)
