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The many faces of oil
The three best-known oil derivatives, gases, fuels and plastics, play such a part in our everyday lives that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without them. However, our relationship with oil does not end there, there are many other products which are obtained from it and which are used both in industry and everyday life.
Oil has always had a large variety of uses. In Mesopotamia, it was used as cement in construction work and to waterproof boats, during the Middle Ages it was considered to have medicinal properties, and in the nineteenth century, oil and kerosene lamps were commonly used. However, it was not until the twentieth century, when thanks to technological innovation, it became possible to extract a wide variety of oil derivatives:
Asphalt is one of the most widely used thanks to its waterproofing characteristics and its resistance, which make it an ideal material for surfacing the road. Although it can be extracted in its natural state at several oilfields, most of the asphalt used on roads and motorways is what remains at refineries after distilling other products from crude oil.
Sulphur is a highly important material in industry. Part of what is used comes from oil, which in its natural state contains up to two per cent of this element and must be extracted at refineries. Sulphuric acid is obtained from sulphur, and among other things this is used to make fertilisers for agriculture.
Present in many everyday items
When the DuPont Laboratories starting producing nylon in 1938, its commercial success was immediate. It is a fibre that has high elasticity and resistance, that does not need to be ironed and is not eaten by clothes moths. It is commonly used to make stockings, string, fishing line, guitar strings, zips and the bristles of toothbrushes, amongst many other things.
Synthetic rubber was first made in Germany during the First World War and in 1945 production overtook that of natural rubber. It has a wide variety of uses, although the best known is tyre manufacturing.
Machine lubricants are another of the purposes of refining. Various additives are used when making them in order to adapt them to car industry needs. Something as common as candle wax also comes from oil, as do paraffin, insecticides and adhesives. Paint, omnipresent on walls, cars and practically anything we look at, also contains components which are extracted from oil such as napthenic acid, toluene and mixed xylenes.
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