“Petrochemicals” [Major holder of Industrial Chemistry]

Petrochemicals: Chemicals derived from petroleum or natural gas and an essential part of the chemical industry. It include the whole range of aliphatic, aromatic, and naphthenic organic chemicals, as well as carbon black and such inorganic materials as sulfur and ammonia.

Petrochemistry is a branch of chemistry that studies the transformation of crude oil (petroleum) and natural gas into useful products or raw materials. These petrochemicals have become an essential part of the chemical industry today.

It is possible to make petroleum from any kind of organic matter under suitable conditions. The concentration of organic matter is not very high in the original deposits, but petroleum and natural gas evolved in places that favored retention, such as sealed-off porous sandstones. Petrochemicals are used in the fields of health, hygiene, housing and food, to name but a few of its thousands of application. Petrochemicals are industrial products that undergo several transformations before being used in products.

Products made from petrochemicals include such items as plastics, soaps and detergents, solvents, drugs, fertilizers, pesticides, explosives, synthetic fibres and rubbers, paints, epoxy resins, and flooring and insulating materials. Petrochemicals are found in products as diverse as aspirin, luggage, boats, automobiles, aircraft, polyester clothes, and recording discs and tapes. Like crude oil and natural gas, petrochemicals are composed primarily of carbon and hydrogen and are called hydrocarbons.

Crude Oil: Crude oils are compounds that mainly consist of many different hydrocarbon compounds that vary in appearance and composition. Average crude oil composition is 84% carbon, 14% hydrogen, 1%-3% sulphur, and less than 1% each of nitrogen, oxygen, metals and salts. Crude oils with a high sulfur content, which may be in the form hydrogen sulphides, are called sour, and those with less sulphur are called sweet.
Crude oil and natural gas are extracted from the ground, on land or under the oceans, with oil wells. Ships, trains, and pipelines transport extracted oils and gasses to refineries. Refineries then execute processes that cause various physical and chemical changes in the crude oil and natural gas. This involves extremely specialized manufacturing processes. One of the important process is distillation.
Refining is the processing of one complex mixture of hydrocarbons into a number of other complex mixtures of hydrocarbons. Refining is where the job of oil industry stops and that of petrochemical industry starts. The raw materials used in the petrochemistry industry are known as feedstocks. These are obtained from the refinery:naphtha, components of natural gas such as butane, and some of the by-products of oil refining processes, such as ethane and propane. Then it undergo processing through an operation called cracking. Cracking is defined as the process of breaking down heavy oil molecules into lighter, more valuable fractions.
Then petrochemicals go through various processes that eventually contribute to the final output of products like plastics, soaps and detergents, healthcare products like aspirin, synthetic fibres for clothes and furniture, rubbers, paints, insulating materials etc.

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Industrial Chemistry Open Access
Email: industrialchem@chemjournals.org
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