How is gas made

The first oil well in the United States was struck by Edwin L. Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania, in at a depth of almost 70 feet 21 m.

With the development of the four-stroke internal combustion engine by Nikolaus Otto in , gasoline became essential to the automotive industry.

Today, almost all gasoline is used to fuel automobiles, with a very small percentage used to power agricultural equipment and aircraft. Petroleum, a fossil fuel, supplies more energy to the world today than any other source. The United States is the world's leading consumer of petroleum; in , Americans used 7,, barrels of oil per day.

Petroleum is formed from the remains of plants and animals that have been held under tremendous pressure for millions of years. Ordinarily, this organic matter would decompose completely with the help of scavengers and aerobic bacteria, but petroleum is created in an anaerobic environment, without the presence of oxygen.

Over half of the world's known crude oil is concentrated in the Persian Gulf basin. Other major areas include the coasts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Petroleum products, including gasoline, are primarily a mixture of hydrocarbons molecules containing hydrogen and carbon molecules with small amounts of other substances. Crude oil is comprised of different lengths of hydrocarbon chains, with some short chains and some very long chains. Depending on how much the oil is broken down, or refined, it may become any number of products.

In general, the smaller the molecule, the lower the boiling point. Therefore, gas, with very small chains of one to five carbons, boils at a very low temperature. Gasoline, with carbons, boils at a slightly higher temperature. Gasoline is one of the products derived from distilling and refining petroleum.

Compounds of organic lead were added to gasoline in the past to reduce knocking in engines, but due to environmental concerns this is no longer common.

Other chemicals are also added to gasoline to further stabilize it and improve its color and smell in a process called "sweetening. A fractional distillation tower is a huge unit that may hold up to , barrels of crude oil. The vapors rise into the fractionating column, which may be as tall as feet 46 m. The vapors cool as they rise through the column. Since the boiling points of all the compounds differ, the larger, heavier molecules will condense first lower in the tower and the shorter, lighter molecules will condense higher in the tower.

Natural gases, gasoline, and kerosene are released near the top. The natural gas that we use to heat our homes and our water comes from deep under the earth. The gas is found in layers of rock with tiny holes - the rock holds the gas like a sponge. To bring it to the surface, gas companies drill down hundreds of feet and pump into pipes. You already know that dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago. When the dinosaurs and the plants they ate died, the remains were buried under many layers of rock and soil.

Vasoline falls in there as well. Chains above the C20 range form solids, starting with paraffin wax, then tar and finally asphaltic bitumen, which used to make asphalt roads. All of these different substances come from crude oil.

The only difference is the length of the carbon chains! Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close.

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