A lot of words have been said about the importance of gas and oil in the modern world. Meanwhile, they began to be actively used relatively recently, but quite quickly they found hundreds of ways to use it. For example, fuel is a product oil refining and gas is very popular in everyday life. But these are not the only areas of their use.
History of gas and oil use
Today it is difficult to imagine how people used to do without modern fuel and many types of equipment. Meanwhile, oil, which was known in antiquity and gave mankind a significant part of this variety of materials, began to be actively used relatively recently - in the second half of the XIX century. Her first appointment was lighting. But the crude oil burned rather dull and smoked heavily, so people began to look for methods for its distillation - as a result, they managed to get oil that was better for lamps. So oil refined products led kerosene, literally turning the entire lighting industry. Lamps based on it were easier to use and care and more economical than oil, so it is not surprising that they soon occupied the entire market. Thus began the era of oil refining.
To obtain kerosene in large quantities, they began to build special plants, but distillation yielded many by-products - gasoline, fuel oil, etc. They were disposed of without finding them proper use. But later it became clear that oil can also be used as fuel, especially after the invention of the internal combustion engine. The search for new applications for black gold pushed the industry forward, opening up new prospects.
Natural gas also became known to man a long time ago. Its outcrops were used by people, for example, as lighthouses, if they were located near the sea, and in China - for lighting, heating and boiling out salt. In modern times, it has long been considered a useless impurity that interferes with oil production, and therefore was burned. And it was widely used only in the middle of the 20th century.
Oil refining process
Immediately after the start of active use, black gold was processed using rather primitive methods. A conventional distillation apparatus was used in which the raw material was brought to a boil and then condensed, separating into fractions. The modern process is much more perfect. Oil refineries (refineries) are entire complexes of expensive and complex equipment.
Everything happens in 4 main stages:
- preliminary preparation;
- primary processing;
- secondary;
- refining of petroleum products.
The preparation consists in the additional removal of water and salts from the crude oil produced in the well. Then the substance is heated so that at certain temperatures the different fractions evaporate and condense separately. Some of them are then sent for sale, while others go through the following steps. In modern refineries, processing occurs at levels down to molecular levels in order to increase the yield of more expensive products and reduce the cost of cheap ones. This process is called conversion or cracking. Compared with European and American technologies, in Russia the processing is rather imperfect, the output is a lot of fuel oil and a little gasoline, which is quite inefficient from an economic point of view.
However, it is worth talking about oil refined products in more detail. There are many more than was mentioned, and each of them is valuable in its own way.
Main products
Some substances are more in demand than others, and they are the goal of building a large number of refineries around the world. The main products of oil and gas processing at the moment are as follows:
- petrol;
- diesel fuel;
- naphtha (naphtha or petroleum alcohol);
- fuel oil.
All this, one way or another, is used as fuel or has had such an application before. The ratio of these substances may be different depending on the methods used. But they all come in products primary oil refining, since they are obtained by simple distillation. In the future, they can be further cleaned and prepared for direct use. But there are other substances derived from oil.
By-products and other products
Since oil is a complex complex of substances, and modern technology is not just distillation, the output is a greater variety. Further processing of fractions allows you to select a large number of substances familiar to people in everyday life. These include oil refining products such as:
- asphalt;
- bitumen;
- paraffins;
- aromatic hydrocarbons;
- raw materials for petrochemicals;
- kerosene;
- solvents;
- petroleum coke;
- lubricating and combustible oils;
- liquefied petroleum gas.
As a result of deep processing, practically no waste remains. In the future, all these substances can also be purified and prepared, for this a huge number of technologies are used, such as hydrolysis, pyrolysis, reforming, isomerization, vacuum distillation, hydrocracking, etc.
The value of hydrocarbons
At the moment, oil and gas are important resources for which the states are still fighting. Despite the rather active use of alternative sources of energy, comparable to them in terms of efficiency, perhaps, simply not. It is not surprising that people cling to this raw material and processed products like that. There is still a lot of oil and gas on the planet, but active production gives reason to believe that reserves will run out during the 21st century, and then humanity will face a global energy crisis. Still, it was not for nothing that this foul-smelling and not too attractive-looking substance was called black gold.
Application
Thanks to the development of processing of this valuable raw material, a whole branch of chemistry has appeared - petrochemistry. This area manages the search not only for more efficient processing methods, but also for new ways to use the resulting. Various types of plastic that surrounds a modern person, fuel, asphalt, which roads are covered with, lubricants - all these are oil refining products. And also the substances used in chemical reactions, polymers, fibers from which the fabric is obtained, highly effective detergents and much more. So is it possible to do without all this?
