Petroleum Chemistry
Petroleum
• Petra (L. rock)
• Oleum (L. oil)
• Oil extracted from rock that lies just below the
surface
U.S. Primary Energy Flow by Source and Sector, 2009
(Quadrillion Btu)
Total = 94.6
Petroleum Statistics, 2008 data
• 1 barrel = 42 gallons
• Top Oil Producing Country?
– Saudi Arabia 10,782,000 barrels/day
• Top Oil Consuming Country?
– United States 19,948,000 barrels/day
• Top U.S. Petroleum/Crude Oil Supplier?
– CANADA 2,493,000 barrels/day
More Statistics, 2008
• U.S. Motor Gasoline Consumption (per day)?
– 8,989,000 barrels (378,000,000 gallons)
Breakdown of cost of gasoline
• Today’s price: $2.87/gallon
Price comparison for other countries
Country
Price per gallon (US dollars)
Spain
$6.02
Canada
$3.67
Mexico
$2.12
Kuwait
$0.87
Turkey
$9.24
Australia
$4.32
Japan
$5.19
The place of the cheapest gasoline in the world?
Venezuela $0.12/gallon
Cost of gasoline compared to other
liquids
Liquid
Price per gallon
Milk
$3.50
Windex
$10.21
Red Bull Energy Drink
$21.77
White Out
$246.55
Black ink to refill printer cartridge1
$86.95
Renu contact lens solution
$58.49
Tap water
< $0.01
Bottled water (school cafeteria)
$7.57
Garnier Fructis Shampoo
$22.34
Dove Body Wash
$29.01
All prices are from Sam’s Club Butler, PA unless otherwise stated.
1 from www.printerfilling station.com
But how did they discover oil?
How do they make gasoline from oil?
How does gas make a car go?
What does the catalytic converter do?
A catalytic converter is a device that uses a catalyst
to convert three harmful compounds in car exhaust
into harmless compounds.
• Hydrocarbons (in the form of unburned gasoline)
• Carbon monoxide (formed by the combustion of
gasoline)
• Nitrogen oxides (created when the heat in the
engine forces nitrogen in the air to combine with
oxygen)
Why are these compounds bad?
• Hydrocarbons are suspected carcinogens.
– Gets converted into carbon dioxide and
water
• Carbon monoxide is a poison for any airbreathing animal.
– Gets converted to carbon dioxide
• Nitrogen oxides lead to smog and acid rain,
and hydrocarbons produce smog.
– Gets converted into nitrogen and oxygen
What does it look like?
• In a catalytic converter, the catalyst (in the
form of platinum and palladium) is coated
onto a ceramic honeycomb or ceramic beads
that are housed in a muffler-like package
attached to the exhaust pipe.
Four Stroke Engine
Spark plug fires,
Combustion
Heated gases
igniting
the
products
are
expand
very
compressed
swept
outand
of
rapidly
mixture of
the
cylinder
push
the
gasoline and air
through
the
piston
down
and begins the
open
exhaust
turning
the
power stroke.
port.
crankshaft.
Cylinder
sealed
Gasoline-Air
asmixture
both intake
enters
valve
and
cylinder
exhaust
throughvalve
open
are
closed
intake
valve.
Compression
Exhaust
Heat
Power
IntakeAdded
Stroke
Stroke
So what is in gasoline that makes the
engine work?
• Gasoline is a mixture of over 500 hydrocarbon
compounds that contain between 5 and 12
carbons.
• Some of the compounds are:
–
–
–
–
–
–
2-methylbutane
2,2-dimethylpropane
2,2-dimethylbutane
2,2-dimethylpentane
2,2,3-trimethylbutane
2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane)
Octane Rating
• Fuel octane requirements for gasoline engines
vary with the compression ratio of the engine.
• Engine compression ratio is the relative
volume of a cylinder from the bottom most
position of the piston's stroke to the top most
position of the piston's stroke.
• The higher an engine's compression ratio, the
greater the amount of heat generated in the
cylinder during the compression stroke.
Octane Rating, cont.
• If fuel octane is too low for a given
compression ratio, the fuel prematurely and
spontaneously ignites too early and the fuel
charge EXPLODES rather than BURNS resulting
in incomplete combustion.
• The net effect is a loss in power, possible
engine damage, and an audible "knock" or
"ping", referred to as detonation.
Octane Rating, cont.
• The octane number of gasoline is a measure of
its resistance to knock.
• The octane number is determined by comparing
the characteristics of a gasoline to isooctane
(2,2,4-trimethylpentane) and heptane.
– Isooctane is assigned an octane number of 100. It is a
highly branched compound that burns smoothly, with
little knock.
– On the other hand, heptane, a straight chain,
unbranched molecule is given an octane rating of zero
because of its bad knocking properties.
Octane Ratings of Common Cpds
found in gasoline
Hydrocarbon
Octane Rating
n-butane
113
n-pentane
62
n-hexane
19
n-heptane
0
2-methylbutane
99
2,2-dimethylpropane
100
2,2-dimethylbutane
89
2,2-dimethylpentane
89
2,2,3-trimethylbutane
113
2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane)
100
Trends of Octane Ratings
• Octane ratings decrease with increasing
carbon chain length.
• Octane ratings increase with carbon chain
branching.
• Octane ratings increase in aromatics with
same number of carbons.
What octane rating should you
purchase?
• For most automobiles, use the lowest grade of
87 octane, unless they specifically say to use a
higher octane gasoline.
• Using higher octane grades does not provide
any extra power or extra mileage.
How they drill for the oil
• Process for drilling oil and natural gas are
basically the same.
http://www.petrocasa.com/rigAnimation/index.
html
Click on all three slides and label the parts and a
few words describing their function.