is petruleum or crude oil the same with gasoline if not what are the difference bet. the two?
whats their relationship? is gasoline a product of crude oil which is a fossil fuel?
whats their relationship? is gasoline a product of crude oil which is a fossil fuel?
April 11th, 2010 at 2:41 am
gasoline is a by-product of refining crude oil
April 11th, 2010 at 2:41 am
Simplified, crude oil is the raw material that is refined to petroleum based products. Think of the refinery as a vertical stack – at the bottom comes out tar (a thick product), higher up comes out diesel oil, then gasoline above and at the top the lightest product propane (LPG).
April 11th, 2010 at 2:41 am
Crude oil is composed of many compounds mixed together. It is kind of like wine where two compounds, water and alcohol, are mixed together.
The different compounds in crude oil have different boiling points. The distillation columns progressively heat the crude oil to higher and higher temperatures and capture each fraction of the crude oil as it boils off. Gasoline is one of those fractions.
April 11th, 2010 at 2:41 am
Gasoline is distilled from crude oil much the same way wiskey is distilled from sour mash. Crude oil contains a mixture of hydrocarbons which vary in density and boiling point. An oil refinery still is a tower with a series of reservoirs arranged along the inside. Each reservoir collects a certain fraction of the crude oil, based on density and boiling point.
When crude oil is heated in the still, the lightest compounds distill first and travel to the top. These are butane, methane and propane, the compounds in "LP gas". This gas is also the starting material for plastic manufacturing.
The next fraction is gasoline, which is a volitile liquid containing octane. The octane fraction is then mixed with additional chemicals to make it suitable as a motor fuel. The higher the octane content, the more efficient the fuel will burn in a gasoline engine. However, the octane content in gasoline varies, hence the choice of three grades of gasoline based on what percentage of octane is present. "Premium" has the highest octane content, but this is because pure octane was added to it. This additional refining increases the price of this fuel. Tetraethyl lead was once added to gasoline to make it burn as though it had a higher octane content. This increased engne preformance but did not increase the price of the gasoline. However, lead is a toxic heavy metal, and was banned from US petroleum decades ago.
The fraction heavier than gasoline is kerosine. This is what diesel fuel and aviation fuel consist of. The next heaviest component is heating oil. Finally, all that remains is tar. Tar is also made by roasting coal. The coal is turned into a charcoal known as "coke". This material is used to manufacture steel. Additional hydrocarbons recovered from crude oil include Benzene and Naphthylene. Benzene is an important material iused in plastics like polystyrine and ABS plastics and naphthylene is used in synthetic dyes, like the brightly colored Azo dyes used in textiles..
April 11th, 2010 at 2:41 am
Look up ‘How oil refining works’ on google … you’ll find a website that describes that ‘petroleum’ and ‘crude oil’ are two names for the same stuff (I didn’t know that!) .. it also explains how crude oil is processed and the different compounds that we use that comes from this process….
PS – thank you for the question! I found trying to help you became an education process for myself!