How is petroleum refined?

Refining of petroleum

The crude petroleum oil is a complex mixture of solid,liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons.

So before petroleum can be used for specific purpose,it has to be refined or purified.

The process of separating crude petroleum oil into more useful fractions is called refining.

The refining of petroleum into different fractions is based on the fact that the different fractions of petroleum have different boiling point.

The refining of petroleum is carried out in an oil refinery.

The crude petroleum oil extracted from oil wells is taken to the oil refinery through pipes.In the oil refinery,crude petroleum is oil is refined into different useful fractions.

The separation of petroleum into different fractions is done by fractional distillation.The various useful fractions obtained by the refining of petroleum are:Petroleum gas,petrol,kerosene,diesel,lubricating oil,paraffin wax,Bitumen.