• Question: @everone, what is petrochemical industry?

    Asked by CessnaTTX to John, Laura, Luke, Ruth on 22 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Laura Finney

      Laura Finney answered on 22 Jun 2016:

      The petrochemical industry is an industry which relies on oil. So petrol comes from oil- hence the name petrol and chemical mashed together!
      Chemistry is a petrochemical industry as most chemicals we use come from oil originally. It is best to try and avoid these things these days since we might run out of oil in the next 50 years!

    • Photo: Luke Williams

      Luke Williams answered on 22 Jun 2016:

      Not only that, but the refinery process is so useful that the more sustainable approach, using a biological route, aims to copy it, and produce a biorefinery!

      The general principle is that oil, and biomass, are both very complex things that produce many products, but need to be purified and separated into the various different components, so they are similarities between the two processes.

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