This document discusses the raw materials used in polymer engineering, including monomers, intermediates, and additives. It focuses on crude oil and natural gas as the primary sources of monomers, explaining how they are extracted, transported, refined through fractional distillation, and processed into petrochemicals and chemical products like ethylene and propylene derivatives that are used to produce polymers. The course details fundamentals of polymer engineering using raw materials from fossil fuels.
1. Fundamentals of Polymer Engineering
Raw Materials of Polymers
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Course Code: PE-3107
Credits: 3-0-3
Teacher: Engr. Asra Tariq
Email Id: asra.tariq@ntu.edu.pk
2. Raw Materials
Monomers: vinyl chloride, ethylene, propylene and similar simple
hydrocarbons
Chemical intermediates : phenol, formaldehyde, hexamethylenetetramine,
phthalic anhydride, methyl acrylate and methacrylate
Other raw materials: plasticizers, fillers, and reinforcements are also
added to alter the properties of the plastic products.
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3. Primary Source of Monomers
The most important primary sources of synthetic polymers are crude
oil, natural gas and, to a minor extent, coal.
Both oil and natural gas can be used to make polyethylene for
example.
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4. Crude Oil
Crude oil is a naturally occurring,
unrefined petroleum product composed of
hydrocarbon deposits and other organic
materials.
A type of fossil fuel, crude oil can be refined to
produce usable products such as gasoline,
diesel and various forms of petrochemicals.
It is a non-renewable resource, which means
that it can't be replaced naturally at the rate we
consume it and is therefore a limited resource.
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5. Formation of Crude Oil
Microscopic plants and animals die and fall to the sea bed
Crude oil forms when organic matter is buried deep underground in an
oxygen free environment. Over millions of years the carbon rich
compounds from the bodies of dead organism are subjected to high
temperature and pressure which changed them into hydrocarbons.
Natural gas (mainly methane CH4), an important fossil fuel is also
found trapped with crude oil under rock sediments. Oil obtained by
drilling.
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6. Extraction and Transport of Crude Oil
Crude oil, natural gas or coal can be extracted from under the sea or land, where they
have remained trapped for millions of years. Companies like Shell and BP have invested
billions of pounds exploiting oil under the North Sea, just off the coast of Scotland. The
North Sea has about 45 oil platforms producing up to four million barrels a day. England
has sufficient oil reserves meeting its current demand for the next forty years.
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7. Processing of Crude Oil
Close to where it is stored, oil refineries process crude oil so that it
can be more useful to us. There is a great demand for fuels like
petrol and deiseal and of course natural gas for heating.
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8. Distillation of Crude Oil
Crude oil is a mixture of different hydrocarbons. They can be separated by
fractional distillation according to their boiling point which change according to
their size (carbon atoms) The most volatile fraction, i.e with the lowest boiling
point evaporates off first and goes to the top of the column. The remaining, longer
chain hydrocarbons also separate out according to their boiling points
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10. Distillation of Crude Oil
The various components of crude oil have different sizes, weights and boiling temperatures; so, the first step is to separate these components.
Because they have different boiling temperatures, they can be separated easily by a process called fractional distillation. The steps of
fractional distillation are as follows:
You heat the mixture of two or more substances (liquids) with different boiling points to a high temperature. Heating is usually done with high
pressure steam to temperatures of about 1112 degrees Fahrenheit / 600 degrees Celsius.
The mixture boils, forming vapor (gases); most substances go into the vapor phase.
The vapor enters the bottom of a long column (fractional distillation column) that is filled with trays or plates. The trays have many holes or
bubble caps (like a loosened cap on a soda bottle) in them to allow the vapor to pass through. They increase the contact time between the
vapor and the liquids in the column and help to collect liquids that form at various heights in the column. There is a temperature difference
across the column (hot at the bottom, cool at the top).
The vapor rises in the column.
As the vapor rises through the trays in the column, it cools.
When a substance in the vapor reaches a height where the temperature of the column is equal to that substance's boiling point, it
will condense to form a liquid. (The substance with the lowest boiling point will condense at the highest point in the column; substances with
higher boiling points will condense lower in the column.).
The trays collect the various liquid fractions.
The collected liquid fractions may pass to condensers, which cool them further, and then go to storage tanks, or they may go to other areas for
further chemical processing
Fractional distillation is useful for separating a mixture of substances with narrow differences in boiling points, and is the most important step
in the refining process.
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11. Petrochemicals
petrochemical” is any chemical derived, directly or indirectly from
petroleum or natural gas or obtained from hydrocarbons and utilized
in industrial & household markets.
The petrochemical industry produces various kinds of chemical
products such as polymers, fibers or rubber, from such raw materials
as petroleum, LPG, natural gas and other hydrocarbons through
many different production processes. Hydrocarbons, the source
material, are used to produce a variety of components including
ethylene, propylene, butadiene and pyrolysis gasoline through non-
catalytic thermal decomposition reaction with steam (steam
cracking).
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