Uses of Petroleum :: essays research papers

cover products are use widely in our everyday lives. They are used to power automobiles produce containers and to keep us warm. Petroleum, or rude crude cover is liquid composed of various organic chemicals. It is found in jumbo quantities below the surface of Earth and is used as a raise and as a raw material in the chemical industry. The enunciate petroleum comes from the two Latin words petro and leum petro center rock and leum meaning oil. The chemical composition of all petroleum is principally hydrocarbons which are a family of organic compounds, composed entirely of carbon and hydrogen. Petroleum is formed under(a) Earths surface by the decomposition of organisms.The remains of precise organisms that live in the sea are trapped with the sands and silts that fabricate to the bottom in sea basins. These deposits become the source rocks for the generation of crude oil. The process began many millions of years ago with the development of abundant life, and it continue s to this day. The sediments reverse thicker and sink into the seafloor under their own weight. As additional deposits pile up, the draw on the ones below increases some(prenominal) thousand times, and the temperature rises by several one C degrees. The mud and sand harden into shale and sandstone and the remains of the dead organisms are change into crude oil and natural gas. Surface deposits of crude oil learn been known to humans for thousands of years. In the areas where they occurred, they were long used for limited purposes, such(prenominal) as caulking boats, waterproofing cloth, and fueling torches. By the time the Renaissance began in the 14th century, some surface deposits were being distilled to obtain lubricants and medicinal products, only the real exploitation of crude oil did not begin until the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution had by then brought about a hunt for new fuels, and the social changes it effected had produced a need for good, cheap oil for lamps people wished to be able to work and read after dark. in one case petroleum forms, it flows upward in Earths sauciness because it has a lower density than the brines that saturate the interstices of the sands and carbonate rocks that constitute the crust of Earth. The crude oil and natural gas rise into the pores of the coarser sediments lying above. For several years people had known that wells drilled for water and coarseness were occasionally infiltrated by petroleum, so the concept of drilling for crude oil itself soon followed.