FRACTIONAL DISTILLATION

“CRUDE OIL”
Crude oil is the term for "unprocessed" oil, the materials that comes out of the ground. It is also
known as petroleum. Crude oil is a fossil fuel, it was made naturally from decaying plants and animals
living in ancient seas millions of years ago - most places you can find crude oil were once sea beds. Crude
oils vary in color, from clear to tar-black, and in viscosity, from water to almost solid.
Crude oils are such a useful starting point for so many different substances because they contain
hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are molecules that contain hydrogen and carbon and come in various
lengths and structures, from straight chains to branching chains to rings.
Crude oil is processed or refined to produce useable products such as gasoline. The process is very
complex and involves both chemical reactions and physical separations. Crude oil is composed of
thousands of different molecules. It would be nearly impossible to isolate every molecule and make
finished products from each molecule. Chemists and engineers deal with this problem by isolating
mixtures of molecules according to the mixture's boiling point range.
The problem with crude oil is that it contains hundreds of different types of hydrocarbons all mixed
together. To have anything useful it needs to separate the different types of hydrocarbons. Fortunately
there is an easy way to separate things, and this is what oil refining is all about.
Crude Oil refinery process:
The oil refining process starts with a fractional distillation column. The various components of crude oil
have different sizes, weights and boiling temperatures; so, the first step is to separate these components.
Because they have different boiling temperatures, they can be separated easily by a process called
fractional distillation. After going through the fractional distillation, crude oil is chemically processed to
change one fraction into another. Finally, Distillated and chemically processed fractions are treated to
remove impurities.
Fractional distillation:
Fractional distillation is the separation of a mixture into its component parts, or fractions. Chemical
compounds are separated by heating them to a temperature at which one or more fractions of the mixture
will vaporize. It uses distillation to fractionate. Generally the component parts have boiling points that
differ by less than 25 °C from each other under a pressure of one atmosphere. If the difference in boiling
points is greater than 25 °C, a simple distillation is typically used.
This process is based on the principle that different substances boil at different temperatures. For
example, crude oil contains kerosene and naphtha, which are useful fractions (naphtha is made into petrol
for cars, and kerosene is made into jet fuel). When you evaporate the mixture of kerosene and naphtha,
and then cool it, the kerosene condenses at a higher temperature than the naphtha. As the mixture cools,
the kerosene condenses first, and the naphtha condenses later.
The fractional distillation of crude oil carries out several steps:
1. Heating the mixture of the substances of crude oil (liquids) with different boiling points to a
high temperature. Heating is usually done with high pressure steam to temperatures of about
1112 degrees Fahrenheit / 600 degrees Celsius.
2. The mixture boils, forming vapor (gases); most substances go into the vapor phase.

3. The vapor enters the bottom of a long column (fractional distillation column) that is filled
with trays or plates. The trays have many holes or bubble caps (like a loosened cap on a soda
bottle) in them to allow the vapor to pass through. They increase the contact time
between the vapor and the liquids in the column and help to collect liquids that form at various
heights in the column. There is a temperature difference across the column (hot at the bottom,
cool at the top).

4. The vapor rises in the column.

5.As thevapor rises through the trays in the column, it cools.

6. When a substance in the vapor reaches a height where the temperature of the column is equal
to that substance's boiling point, it will condense to form a liquid. (The substance with the
lowest boiling point will condense at the highest point in the column; substances with higher
boiling points will condense lower in the column)

7. The trays collect the various liquid fractions.

8. The collected liquid fractions may pass to condensers, which cool them further, and then go to
storage tanks, or they may go to other areas for further chemical processing.
Names of fractions at the
different condensation
levels (% in crude oil)
Fuel Gas, LPG, refinery gas
(1-2%)
Gasoline – petrol
( C 5 to 7
Naphtha
(20-40%)
Paraffin, kerosene
(10-15%)
Diesel oil, Gas oil
(15-20%)
Heavy fuel oil, heating oil,
lubricating oil, greases
RESIDUE – fuel oil,
lubricating oils, waxes AND
bitumen
(40-50%)
Number of C The approximate USES of the fractions
atoms in the boiling range in Many are useful fuels- alkane hydrocarbons,
hydrocarbon o
C of the fraction but they are non-renewable fossil fuels-
molecule fraction specific use depends on physical properties
(see later)
C 1 to 4 Easily liquefied petroleum gas, portable energy
Mainly propane source e.g. bottled gas for heating and cooking
and butane gases 20 oC (butane), higher pressure cylinders ( propane),
which can be feedstock for other organic chemicals
compressed or
liquefied
Easily vaporised , highly flammable, easily
ignited, car fuel- petrol molecules
70 oC
No good as a fuel, but valuable raw material
C 6 to 10 source of organic chemicals to make other
120 oC things, cracked to make more petrol and
alkenes
Less volatile, less flammable than petrol,
C 10 to 16 domestic central heating fuel, (paraffin)
aircraft jet fuel (kerosene)
170 oC
Less volatile than petrol, diesel fuel for some
C 14 to 20 270 oC cars and larger vehicle like haulage trucks,
trains central heating fuel, also cracked to
make more petrol and alkenes
Not so easily evaporated, not as flammable,
C >20 to ~30 safe to store, liquid fuel oil for power stations
>350 oC and ships, quite viscous (sticky) and can also be
used for lubricating oils (lubricants, mineral oils
) and greases.
Low melting solids used as candle wax, clear
C >30, maybe up waxes and polishes (can be dyed) and the
to several biggest molecules make bitumen/ asphalt –
hundred 340 oC low melting solid used on roads as it forms a
thick, black, tough and resistant adhesive
surface on cooling, used as a roofing
waterproofing material (it sticks rock chips on
roofs or road surfaces)
HOW THESE FUELS ARE USED:
C2H6, C3H8, C4H10
The very low boiling refinery gas fractions, can be stored under pressure as bottled gas, and because the
gas readily flows under the control of a simple valve, they can be conveniently pumped to burner systems.
Being gases are easily ignited but explosive ! The intermolecular forces are very weak in a gas, that's why
they are gases at room temperature, and they are fluid just like a liquid, so easily moved through pipes.

C5H12 to C7H16
The intermolecular forces are now great enough to raise the boiling point of the hydrocarbons to above
room temperature and make them liquids at room temperature. Vehicle fuels like petrol must be liquid at
room temperature for compact and convenient storage but they must be easily vapourised (low boiling
point) to mix with air in the engine prior to ignition. However, the ease of vaporisation due to weak
intermolecular forces, does however make them highly flammable

C10H22 to C16H34
Paraffin and kerosene are bigger molecules, bigger intermolecular forces, so less volatile and
flammable. This makes safer to use in domestic heating and jet aircraft fuel, but not as easily ignited.

C14H30 to C20H42
Diesel oil is not as volatile, flammable or as easily ignited as petrol due to the higher boiling point and
intermolecular forces. However as a vehicle fuel it doesn't have to be vapourised first, the diesel fuel is
sprayed into the engine cylinder and mixed with air and ignites under compression from the piston action.

C14H30 to C20H42
Fuel oil molecules are getting quite big, higher boiling points, higher intermolecular forces and more
viscous, but not too viscous to pump to a ships boiler or locomotive diesel engine. Fuel oil is not very
volatile and so not as flammable and dangerous to use as petrol or diesel etc.

> C21H44 (typically 36 C atoms, C36H74)

Lubricating oil must be quite viscous to stick onto surfaces and are virtually non-volatile due to the even
higher intermolecular forces. Smaller molecules might be more runny but they would evaporate away! It
is also water repellent and helps reduce corrosion on moving metal parts from factory machines to cars
and bicycles.
> C21H44 (typically 31 C atoms, C31H64)
Candle wax is very convenient as a solid for a humble lamp (especially in power cuts!), but via a wick,
the heat from the flame is sufficient to vaporise the hydrocarbons to burn them and give a big enough
luminous yellow flame to act as a source of light. At this point in the fractions the intermolecular forces
are now sufficient to create solids at room temperature, albeit low melting like candle wax.

> C60H122 (many much bigger)

Bitumen is a water repellent solid at room temperature but is readily melted (sometimes too easily in hot
weather!). Used as base for a road chipping top surface or sometimes directly as the top layer in roads.
Bitumen is also used to make waterproof roofing felt. Bitumen consists of the largest molecules in crude
oil with the greatest intermolecular forces between them, so they are solid at room temperature and very
high boiling up to 700oC.

REFERENCES:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261551891_Distillation_process_of_Crude_oil?fbclid=IwAR1u
_C421VIgUCC8jS1L1TlljpOnVTXIqe7h3AgyIx5nG4xQPj58zNp2NEk
http://www.docbrown.info/page04/OilProducts02.html

MEMBERS:

CHRISTIAN JEM BULURAN - REPORTER

KIMBERLY CALMA - RESEARCHER

MIKE ANGELO LEGASPI - WRITTEN REPORT

JESSICA REYES - REPORTER