I get that there’s some sense of just letting it sit there and heating it up, but I don’t get it.
In: Chemistry
Crude oil is a mixture of a ton of different hydrocarbons (long chains of carbon atoms with hydrogens hanging off them). The very short hydrocarbons, methane/ethane/propane/butane, are gasses, and make up natural gas. The rest of them are liquid-ish at room temperature but they all boil at different temperatures. The longer the molecule, the higher the boiling point.
Gasoline, kerosene, and diesel are just different fractions of the crude oil. You heat the crude until most of it turns to gas and the slowly cool it in a big tower called a “distillation column”. The heaviest/longest molecules will condense out first (highest temperature), that’s the super heavy stuff like fuel oil. Diesel and kerosene are lighter and come out next. Gasoline is last and is the lightest/lowest boiling point. The crap left at the bottom that never evaporated is tar.
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