Crude Crude Crude

So you discovered that your house is sitting on a land that contains crude oil. You know you are going to be rich because crude oil consists of a mixture of hydrocarbon components that are essential in today’s industry. But, do you know how to separate those hydrocarbons from that mixture of crude oil? If you are aware of fractional distillation, then you have nothing to worry about but if you are not aware of it, then read up.

First of all, the crude oil is found in its liquid form. What we want to do is convert it to the gaseous form. So crude oil is subjected to a curved pipe (furnace) where it is heated and converted to a gas. Then that gas, which is a mixture of the hydrocarbons that made up the crude oil, enters a tower. In this tower, the physical properties of hydrocarbons are taken advantage off. The bottom of the tank is warm and as we move up the tower, its gets cooler. We all know that gas tends to condense at cooler temperatures. So as this gas mixture from the crude oil moves up the tower, the hydrocarbons condense back to liquid at their corresponding boiling points. The hydrocarbons that have high boiling points condense at the bottom of the tower (warm) and those that have low boiling points condense at cooler temperatures (cooler). This whole process is called fractional distillation. You have just separated crude oil into its major components. So now you know what is happening in those large industrial pipes that release gas into the atmosphere.