What does oil have to do with gas?

Question

Well ive tried to find the answer but cannot..

How does oil help make gasoline..

Also isnt there a way to make a liquid substitute to oil, by that i mean does the same thing as oil does.

Answer 1

Gasoline is made from crude oil.

The crude oil is heated, and different "fractions" boil off at different temperatures.

Gasoline is whatever boils off at about 40 degrees Celsius.

For a really cool graphic of this, see:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C006295/co...

So gasoline isn't a pure compound, just whatever was in the crude oil from that oil well, that boils at the right temperature for easy vaporization to use in a gasoline engine.

You can make oil from coal, that is called "coal gassification", developed many years ago by South Africa.

It is not economical, but with oil prices rising, may be getting there.

Answer 2

Oil is a mix of hydrocarbon chains (that's hydrogen, carbon holding hands)

One carbon is Methane, and then you got ethane, butane, propane, pentane, etc..

C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C  (8 carbons is octane... clever name, huh?)

Sometimes there are a whole bunch of carbons and they get all tangled with other molecules... with dirt, sand, wax, asphalt, and even water.... this is crude oil (basically).

A refinery takes crude oil and uses processes designed to separate the carbon chains and organize them into sellable products, like natural gas (methane, mostly), butane for lighters, propane for bbq pits, and the heavier hydrocarbons for gasoline, diesel, and kerosene.

Sure, there are other ways of getting hydrocarbons besides from crude oil... it just happens that crude oil is the most cost effective and abundant source.

Answer 3

To learn about how to make gas from oil, go to

http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-ref...

It talks about refining.

Answer 4

Oil in the ground contains gasoline, and many other products.  The raw oil is distilled to separate the different components, one of them is gas.

Answer 5

they are hydocarbons

Answer 6

Gasoline is derived from crude oil.  It is not just the stuff that goes into engines...

Answer 7

Look up distillation column and oil refinery.

Answer 8

When crude oil is pulled out of the ground, it gets shipped to various refiners all around the world.  These refiners turn the crude oil into various other products, such as gasoline, heating oil, disiel fuel, and other things.  So the gas that you put in your car was at one time crude oil.

There are a few substituts for oil, but they're not as efficient.  Ethanol is a good example of this.