The Refining Process

As mentioned previously, a barrel of crude oil has a mixture of all sorts of hydrocarbons in it. Oil refining separates everything into useful substances. Chemists use the following steps:

The oldest and most common way to separate things into various components (calledfractions), is to do it using the differences in boiling temperature. This process is calledfractional distillation. You basically heat crude oil up, let it vaporize and then condense the vapor.
Newer techniques useChemical processingon some of the fractions to make others, in a process calledconversion. Chemical processing, for example, can break longer chains into shorter ones. This allows a refinery to turn diesel fuel into gasoline depending on the demand for gasoline.
Refineries must治疗去除杂质的分数。
Refineriescombinethe various fractions (processed, unprocessed) into mixtures to make desired products. For example, different mixtures of chains can create gasolines with differentoctane ratings.

The products are stored on-site until they can be delivered to various markets such as gas stations, airports and chemical plants. In addition to making the oil-based products, refineries must also treat the wastes involved in the processes to minimize air and water pollution.

In the next section, we will look at how we separate crude oil into its components.