Cracking

Fuels made from oil mixtures containing large hydrocarbon molecules are not efficient as they do not flow easily and are difficult to ignite. Crude oil often contains too many large hydrocarbon molecules and not enough small hydrocarbon molecules to meet demand. This is where cracking comes in.

Cracking allows large hydrocarbon molecules to be broken down into smaller, more useful hydrocarbon molecules. Fractions containing large hydrocarbon molecules are heated to vaporise them. They are then either:

• heated to 600-700°C
• passed over a catalyst of silica or alumina

These processes break covalent bonds in the molecules, causing thermal decomposition reactions. Cracking produces smaller alkanes and alkenes (hydrocarbons that contain carbon-carbon double bonds). For example:

hexane → butane + ethene

C₆H₁₄ → C₄H₁₀ + C₂H₄

The slideshow shows this process:

Some of the smaller hydrocarbons formed by cracking are used as fuels, and the alkenes are used to make polymers in plastics manufacture. Sometimes, hydrogen is also produced during cracking.