Coal & Petroleum 🪨

Resource: Anything used by humans for themselves

• Natural Resources : Resources which are obtained by nature

  • Renewable - Not likely to be exhausted by human activities, present in unlimited quantity. Ex. Water, Sunlight

  • Non Renewable - Likely to be exhausted by human activities, limited

    Ex. Fossil fuels

Fossil Fuels - Formed when dead remains of organic matter are subjected to high heat and pressure

• Coal : hard, black/ brownish, like a rock, mainly composed of carbon

  • Uses - Used as Fuel

  • 300 million years ago, Earth had forests in low lying and wet areas. Bcoz of natural activities (like flood) the forests got buried under the soil. As more soil was formed and was layered on top of these stuff, they started getting compressed. Bcoz sooo many layers of soil deposited over these things in these many years, the bottom most layer was under high pressure and high heat. So, it eventually turned into coal.

  • The slow process of conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called Carbonisation.

  • How to obtain Coal :

    • If the coal is not more than 200 feet down, we can obtain it by Surface mining

    • If the coal deposits lies below 200 feet, we get it by Deep mining

  • Products Of Coal :

    1. Coke : tough, porus, black, purest form of carbon, used in steel production, metal industry, etc

    2. Coal Tar : black, thick liquid, mixture of more than 200 stuff!, Chean smell, used in paints, roads, cosmetics, explosives, medicines

    3. Coal Gas : obtained during the process of getting coke, used to generate power in power plants, obtained through Destrutive distillation

• Petroleum : ‘Petra’ = Rock ‘Oleum’ = Oil, i.e, Rock Oil, that is mined from between the rocks in the Earth

  • Formation :

    300 - 400 million years ago, all the stuff living in the shallow sea, got burried under tons of sediments, bcoz of high heat, high pressure and absence of Oxygen, these remains got converted into petroleum & natural gas

  • Extraction of Petroleum : A drill & pipeline are lowered in the sea towards the seabed

    • the drill pipe drills the seabed further

    • When the drill pipe reaches the deposits, it pumps out the oil and gas

    • But, Oil, Water (waste vala), and Gas are collected separately

  • Refining of Petroleum : The process of separating the various constituents of petroleum

    • Refining is done in refiners

    • The basis of separating stuff is the Boiling point

      

• Natural Gas : It is a comparatively cleaner fuel

  • Easier to transport through pipes

  • Stored under high pressure, known as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)

  • Uses of Natural Gas -

    • Used for power Generation

    • Used in Vehicles

• Petrol Conservation Research Association (PCRA) - Finding out how to save petrol while driving