Fracking (Hydraulic Fracturing)
As the reserves of recoverable liquid petroleum diminish, oil companies are increasingly turning to unconventional resources. Unconventional resources include such things as extra heavy oil and shale. It is estimated…
Bond Formation and Reaction Energy
Chemistry can be confusing because the generic term energy is thrown around quite a bit. You have probably read, even in these articles, that bond formation releases energy only to…
The Chemistry of Petroleum Formation
At its base, petroleum is a fossil fuel, which means it is derived from the remains of organic material. In other words, petroleum results from a number of chemical reactions…
Petroleum Composition
Most people presume petroleum to be similar to gasoline or petrol, simply a less pure form, which needs to be refined. In actuality the chemical composition of petroleum in its raw state…
How Hydrocarbons Burn
Ideal Reaction Under ideal settings, where only hydrocarbon and oxygen are present, the chemical reaction commonly called combustion or burning produces only water, carbon dioxide, and energy as the following…
Hydrocarbons
A hydrocarbon is an organic compound composed of two elements, hydrogen and carbon. A large part of the composition of petroleum is made up of hydrocarbons of varying lengths. The…
Alternatives to Petroleum
In 2008, the top 15 oil consuming nations used nearly 60 million barrels of oil per day. The United States accounted for roughly 19,500,000 of that, followed by China at…
Kinematics of motion of singular surfaces: the speed of displacement
To determine the speed of displacement of a moving singular surface consider a surface as shown in Fig. 5.3. Let the points on this surface be given by the expression: configuration of identifiable…
Shock surfaces
It is a rather common phenomenon that abrupt changes occur at the bounding surface of a fluid mass. This happens for example when starting a pump or a compressor, or…
