Videos & Summaries
How Petroleum Was Formed, Its Extraction, Refining, and Uses Petroleum is formed from the remain of dead sea creatures. Heat and pressure caused the remains to turn into petroleum. The oil needs to be refined which separates components from the oil. This process is known as fractional distillation. Petroleum is not a renewable resource and will run out in the future. It provides us with many things such as diesel, kerosene, and even paraffin.
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Formation of PetroleumPetroleum is formed from dead organisms in the sea being covered in layers of sand and clay. Over millions of years, the absences of air, high temperatures, and high pressures transformed the organisms into natural gas and petroleum. The first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. About 8 years later, oil was found around the world.
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Crude Oil Distillation SimplifiedPetroleum must be refined before it can be used for anything. Depending on the type of oil, the refining processes are different. This process takes place in 3 steps. The first is to separate the crude oil into its naturally occurring components by the process of distillation. The second step is to heat the oil in the distillation tower. The temperature decreases as the vapor rises through the tower and condenses. Gases are at the top while viscous liquids are at the bottom.
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What Is Crude Oil? Crude oil is a mix of hydrocarbons at different lengths. Heavy and light crude is defined by the amount of Sulfur in the oil. To refine the oil, you heat the crude up until it turns into gases. Then you pipe those vapors into a fractional distillation column. As the vapor rises, the temperature cools. Depending on the boiling point, it condenses into liquid. Petroleum can make gasoline, liquid refinery glass or even asphalt.
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Petroleum and Its RefiningWhen petroleum is refined, it separates the mixture of organic compounds in it into useful items. The process is 3 steps. The first step is to separate the water, to do this, the oil is flown between two highly charged electrodes. The next step is to remove Sulphur compounds, to do this, the oil is treated with copper oxide. The Sulphur and copper oxide forms precipitate which is removed by filtration. The last step is fractionation which is when the crude oil is heated. The vapor from that is passed through the fractalization.
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