What are the four key steps involved in fractional distillation of crude oil?

The process of fractional distillation of crude oil involves four key steps: heating, evaporating, condensing, and collecting.

Initially, the crude oil is heated in a distillation column, which causes it to evaporate. As the crude oil heats up, different hydrocarbons vaporize at different temperatures due to their varying boiling points.

Once the vapors rise through the column, they encounter cooler areas, leading to the next step: condensing. The warmer, lighter fractions, such as gases and lighter liquids, rise higher in the column while heavier fractions, which require more heat to evaporate, condense lower down as they cool.

Finally, the condensed liquids are collected at different levels of the column. Each fraction collected corresponds to a different range of hydrocarbons, which can then be further processed for various uses.

This series of steps is fundamental to the fractional distillation process, allowing for effective separation of the complex mixture present in crude oil based on boiling points.