Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. [1] Most petroleum is converted into petroleum products, which include several classes of fuels. [2]
Petroleum refinery in Anacortes, Washington, United States. Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes and other facilities used in petroleum refineries (also referred to as oil refineries) to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oils.
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha.
In 2018 road transport used 49% of petroleum, aviation 8%, and uses other than energy 17%. [156] Electric vehicles are the main alternative for road transport and biojet for aviation. [157] [158] [159] Single-use plastics have a high carbon footprint and may pollute the sea, but as of 2022 the best alternatives are unclear. [160]
The produced oil may sometimes be stabilised (a form of distillation) which reduces vapour pressure and sweetens "sour" crude oil by removing hydrogen sulphide, thereby making the crude oil suitable for storage and transport. Offshore installations deliver oil and gas to onshore terminals which may further process the fluids prior to sale or ...
Oil field in California, 1938. The modern history of petroleum began in the nineteenth century with the refining of paraffin from crude oil. The Scottish chemist James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for ...
The crude oil is fed to a stabilizer which is typically a tray or packed tower column that achieves a partial fractionation or distillation of the oil. [4] The heavier components, pentane (C 5 H 12 ), hexane (C 6 H 14 ), and higher hydrocarbons (C 7 +), flow as liquid down through the column where the temperature is increasingly higher.
The process used to extract the bitumen from the sand is a hot water process originally developed by Dr. Karl Clark of the University of Alberta during the 1920s. After extraction from the sand, the bitumen is fed into a bitumen upgrader which converts it into a light crude oil equivalent.