About This Lesson
The first major step (shown in another video) in refining crude oil is fractional distillation where they heat the crude and literally “boil off” the different hydrocarbon chains. This causes the vertical separation of the different hydrocarbon molecules in the tower.
But because fractional distillation only produces about 20% gasoline from the crude, petroleum engineers get techy by using some sophisticated combinations of physic and chemistry in a process called “cracking”.
