Chemistry 121/122

Natural Gas  Made up of hydrocarbons with low molar masses (mostly methane)  Good for combustion because it burns with a hot, clean flame  Natural gas is separated into its hydrocarbon components through liquefaction  They are sold as liquid petroleum gas (LPG)

Petroleum  Otherwise known as crude oil  Most are straight chain and branched chain alkanes  Amount of carbon can vary from 1 – 40  The mixture has to be separated, or refined, in order to be useful  This begins with distillation into fractions according to boiling points

Cracking  Due to the demand of gasoline, chains of carbon that do not fall under its criteria need to be broken, or cracked, into more useful molecules  Cracking can occur with catalysts and heat  Some of these molecules are also used to manufacture plastics and paints

Coal  Vegetation died and became peat  Peat can be used an an inexpensive fuel  If left in the ground, it can eventually turn into lignite, or brown coal, then bituminous coal, and ultimately, hard coal  All have increasing amounts of carbon and lesser amount of water  Obtained by mining  Mostly composed of aromatic compounds of high molar mass