CHE E122 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Fractional Distillation, Fuel Oil, Sulfide
Document Summary
Uses of alkanes according to number of carbon atom: the first four alkanes are gases and are used for heating, cooking and electricity generation. The main components of natural gas are methane and ethane. Propane and butane are used as lpg (liquefied petroleum gas). Propane is also used in the propane gas burner, butane in disposable cigarette lighters. They are also used as propellants in aerosol sprays: alkane having carbon number 5-8 are volatile liquids. Many solid alkanes find use as paraffin wax: alkanes with 35 or more carbon atoms are used for road surfacing, synthetic polymers such as polyehtylene are alkanes with chains containing hundreds of thousands of carbon atoms. Sources of alkanes: the two major sources of alkanes are natural gas and petroleum. Natural gas consists of approximately 90 to 95% methane, 5 to 10% ethane, and a mixture of other relatively low-boiling alkanes (propane, butane and 2- methylpropane).
