CHEMISTRY PROJECT

BY: OUAIL BALAH

Fossil fuels.
Oil, petroleum, natural gas, gasoline, petrol, coal, and coke: all these are types of
what people call 'fossil fuels'. So why are they called 'fossil fuels'? Because, like
fossils of shells or plants which you can find in some rocks, they are old, often
hundreds of millions of years old. In fact, fossil fuels are part of the remains of
living things which once flourished on the planet, but died and became buried
under thick layers of younger rocks. Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural
processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of
the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and
sometimes exceeds 650 million years

Advantages of Fossil Fuels

Depending on the fuel, fossil fuels are readily available. While it’s possible that
we’re going to have a shortage in the future, it hasn’t happened yet, and new
methods of exploiting these fuels are invented all the time. These fuels are easy
to use, and a simple combustion process turns them into methods for running a
vehicle, generating electricity, or providing heat. 

Fossil fuels are currently pretty cheap, as are the methods of generating energy
from them. With our existing distribution networks, we can get fossil fuels of all
kinds all over the world. That makes it easy to use them, no matter where you
are. Many alternative fuels remain expensive, hard to distribute, difficult to get
energy from and hard to access, making the switch over extremely difficult.

Disadvantages of Fossil Fuels

Of course, there are disadvantages to these fuels, as well. The biggest is probably
the level of pollution they create. This varies by fuel, but oil and coal burning are
responsible for acid rain and possibly for changing the world’s climate, as well.
We can’t tell to what degree fossil fuel emissions are responsible for climate
change, but the possibility is a worrisome one. There’s also the problem where
fossil fuels are nonrenewable. It would take millions of years to replace coal, and
oil, and we’re using them quickly. 
There’s a limited amount of these fuels available, and we’re not actually sure
where that limit is. Technologies to get more out of the earth are advancing, but
they don’t seem to be doing it as quickly as our demand is growing. In addition,
while coal is much more plentiful than oil, extraction of coal can be very unsafe,
and is damaging to the environment on a large scale, causing erosion,
acidification of the environment, and destruction of wild lands.
 Crude oil.
Crude oil is a mixture of thousands of different organic compounds with different
Properties. Before crude oil can be used, these compounds must be sorted into
batches of Compounds with similar properties. Each of these batches, or
fractions, has specific uses. Or we say Crude oil is a mixture of substances which
are mostly hydrocarbons. A hydrocarbon is a compound containing hydrogen and
carbon only. Since crude oil is a mixture of different hydrocarbon compounds,
the different hydrocarbons will have different boiling points. A sample of crude
oil will therefore have a range of boiling points, and the mixture can be separated
by fractional distillation.

The main products of crude oil are:

 Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)

 Gasoline (also known as petrol)
 Naphtha
 Kerosene and related jet aircraft fuels
 Diesel fuel
 Fuel oils
 Lubricating oils
 Paraffin wax
 Asphalt and tar
 Petroleum coke

Fractional distillation of crude oil.

Crude oil is heated until it boils and then the hydrocarbon gases are entered into
the bottom of the fractionating column. As the gases go up the column the
temperature decreases. The hydrocarbon gases condense back into liquids and the
fractions are removed from the sides of the column. The smaller the hydrocarbon
molecule,
the further it rises up the column before condensing. The fractionating column
operates continuously. The temperatures shown are approximate. A sample of
 crude oil may be separated in the laboratory by fractional distillation. The
collection vessel is changed as the temperature rises to collect the different
fractions.

fractional distillation of crude oil.

The diagram shows the fractional distillation of crude oil, products are obtained
at different temperatures:

Diagram
 Hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbons are chemical compounds consisting entirely of carbon and
hydrogen. They are a subset of organic compounds. Hydrocarbons range
from methane, which is just one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms,
to polymers such as polystyrene, which consists of thousands of carbon and
hydrogen atoms.

Formula Name Boiling point State +20C

CH4 Methane - 161 gas
CH3CH3 Ethane - 89 gas
CH3CH2CH3 Propane - 42 gas
CH3CH2CH2CH3 Butane - 0.5 gas
CH3CH2CH2CH2CH3 Pentane + 36 liquid
CH3(CH2)6CH3 Octane + 125 liquid

Cracking
 What is cracking?
Cracking is the name given to breaking up large hydrocarbon molecules into
smaller and more useful bits. This is achieved by using high pressures and
temperatures without a catalyst, or lower temperatures and pressures in the
presence of a catalyst.

The source of the large hydrocarbon molecules is often the naphtha fraction or
the gas oil fraction from the fractional distillation of crude oil (petroleum). These
fractions are obtained from the distillation process as liquids, but are re-
vaporized before cracking.

There isn't any single unique reaction happening in the cracker. The hydrocarbon
molecules are broken up in a fairly random way to produce mixtures of smaller
hydrocarbons, some of which have carbon-carbon double bonds. One possible
reaction involving the hydrocarbon C15H32 might be:

Or, showing more clearly what happens to the various atoms and bonds:

This is only one way in which this particular molecule might break up. The
ethene and propene are important materials for making plastics or producing
other organic chemicals. The octane is one of the molecules found in petrol
(gasoline).

Catalytic cracking
 Modern cracking uses zeolites as the catalyst. These are complex
aluminosilicates, and are large lattices of aluminum, silicon and oxygen atoms
carrying a negative charge. They are, of course, associated with positive ions
such as sodium ions. You may have come across a zeolite if you know about ion
exchange resins used in water softeners. The alkane is brought into contact with
the catalyst at a temperature of about 500°C and moderately low Pressures.

The zeolites used in catalytic cracking are chosen to give high percentages of
hydrocarbons with between 5 and 10 carbon atoms - particularly useful for petrol
(gasoline). It also produces high proportions of branched alkanes and aromatic
hydrocarbons like benzene.
The zeolite catalyst has sites which can remove a hydrogen from an alkane
together with the two electrons which bound it to the carbon. That leaves the
carbon atom with a positive charge. Ions like this are called carbonium ions (or
carbocations). Reorganization of these leads to the various products of the
reaction.

Thermal cracking
In thermal cracking, high temperatures (typically in the range of 450°C to
750°C) and pressures (up to about 70 atmospheres) are used to break the large
hydrocarbons into smaller ones. Thermal cracking gives mixtures of products
containing high proportions of hydrocarbons with double bonds - alkenes.
Thermal cracking doesn't go via ionic intermediates like catalytic cracking.
Instead, carbon-carbon bonds are broken so that each carbon atom ends up with a
single electron. In other words, free radicals are formed.
THE END