Hydrocarbons

  • Crude oil is made of remains of ancient biomass ( mainly plankton) sank to bottom of sea, buried in layers of mud/sand formed sedimentary rocks

  • Over years layers of rocks build up, increasing heat and pressure, caused remains to be broken down into molecules that form crude oil.

  • A fossil fuel, used for transport, heating & generating electricity

  • Compounds containing hydrogen & carbon

  • Crude oil is made up of ONLY hydrocarbons

  • Alkanes

    • Most hydrocarbons in crude oil are alkanes

    • Single C-C bond

    • Saturated hydrocarbons, contain as many hydrogen as possible per molecule

    • General formula = CnH2n+2CnH2n+2

    • n is the number of carbon atoms

  • Alkenes

    • Unsaturated

    • Double C=C bond

    • General formula = CnH2nCnH2n

    • Only one C=C bond the rest are C-C

  • Carbon makes 4 bonds as it is in group 4. Has 4 electrons in outer shell and needs 4 more.

  • Prefixes

    • Meth… (monkeys)

    • Eth… (eat)

    • Prop… (peanut)

    • But… (butter)

    • Pent…

    • Hex…