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Cracking

Large hydrocarbons obtained from fractional distillation of crude oil, such as


liquid paraffin, can be cracked to produce smaller more useful alkanes and
some alkenes. Cracking is performed using porous pot as a catalyst.

1. Draw a labeled diagram of the apparatus used for cracking.

2. State two precautions that need to be taken during this experiment.


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3. One of the products of the cracking process is an alkene, ethene.


The presence of ethene gas can be shown by shaking a test tube that
contains this gas with bromine water.

i) Why is it necessary for the test tube to be shaken?


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ii) What colour does bromine water turn?


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4. Mathew did the experiment by passing the vapour of liquid paraffin over
porous pot catalyst. He then passed the products of the reaction through
bromine water and he measured the time taken for bromine water to turn
colourless.

It took 15 seconds.

Mathew then asked to investigate another idea ‘Increasing the temperature of


the porous pot in the boiling tube would decrease the rate by which the
unsaturated compounds are produced’.

(i) Describe how Mathew could plan to obtain valid data to test this idea.

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(ii) How could Mathew obtain reliable results?

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5. Nicko found the boiling temperatures of some alkanes in a chemistry book.

Boiling
Molecular
Temperature
Formula
Name (oC)
methane CH4 -164
ethane C2H6 -89
propane C3H8 -42
butane C4H10 -0.5
pentane C5H12 36
hexane C6H14 69

octane C8H18 125


nonane C9H20 151

(i) On the graph paper, draw a graph of the boiling temperatures


against the number of carbon atoms per molecule.
(ii) Describe, and explain in detail the pattern shown on the graph.

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6. Crude oil is one of the world’s treasures because of its importance in our
lives.

Alkanes and alkenes are obtained from crude oil.

The graph below shows how the world production of crude oil per day has
varied since 1999.

Using the graph, explain in detail how the world production of crude oil has
changed since 1999.

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7. In the last few years, the demand for crude oil has not been increased.
Suggest reasons for this.

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