Hydrocarbons

Fuels
 Crude Oil
İ Crude oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbon. Three
main series of hydrocarbons are present : arenes,
cycloalkenes, and alkenes. At a given boiling point, the
densities of these decrease in the order arenes >
cycloalkenes > alkenes.
Simple Description of The Separation of Crude
Oil
Crude oil must be refined so that use can be
made of the wide variety of hydrocarbon presence. The
separation into fraction is known as fractional
distillation. The crude oil must be vaporised. Pass the
crude oil through pipes in a furnace, and heated to 650
K. the resulting mixture is fed into the distillation
column. Vapour passes up the column through the trays.
Liquid flows down the column from tray to tray. When
vapour passes through a tray, the hot vapour comes into
contact with a slightly cooler liquid. Some of the
molecule in the vapour will condense.
Cracking
İ Cracking is heating the oil fraction with
a catalyst. High molecular mass alkanes
are broken down into low molecular mass
alkanes as well as alkenes. C-C bond and
C-H bonds are broken in the process. A
variety of products including hydrogen
are possible and some of the
intermediates can react to produce
branched Ħ chain alkane isomers. In the
catalytic cracker the hot, vaporised oil
fraction and the catalyst behave as a
fluid. The seething mixture is called a
fluidised.
eforming
İ eforming is conversion of alkanes
to cycloalkanes, or of
cycloalkanes to arenes. eforming
reactions are catalysed by
bimetallic catalyst. A catalyst
containing clusters of platinum
and iridium atoms enables
conversion of straight chain
alkanes to arenes. These metal
clusters are deposited on an
inert support.
Isomerisation
İ Isomerisation is heating the
straight chain isomer in the
presence of a platinum
catalyst. The resulting
mixture of straight and
branched chain isomers then
has to be separated by using
a molecular sieve.
 Fuels
İ The essential reaction for any chemical
fuel is :
÷




 Oxydation products + energy transfer

A fuel should react with an oxidiser to release a large amounts of energy.

A fuel must be oxidised fairly easily, ignite quickly and
sustain burning without further intervention.
A fuel should be readily available, in a large quantities and at a reasonable price
A fuel should not burn to give products that are difficult to
dispose of, or are unpleasant or harmful

A fuel should be convenient to store and transport safely and without loss
 Alternatives to Fossil Fuels
İ Biofuels
Advantages :
enewable, helps to reduce waste, used with simple technology.
Disadvantages :
Not large enough supply to replace fossil fuels at present rates of used.

İ Methanol
Advantages :
Burns cleanly and completely, little carbon monoxide is produced.
Disadvantages :
More toxic than ethanol, it provides much less energy per litre than petrol.

İ Hydrogen
Advantages :
No pollution, as water is the only waste product
Disadvantages :
Difficult to store, regarded as too dangerously explosive by many people.