I am involved with the Transition Town foundation. For our exhibition we are working to make people aware of how many products are made from oil. And what problems this will cause if there is a shortage of oil.
Now the question is where we can look to find out how much % a product consists of oil, and that is quite tough.
For example, is plastic 100% oil? or fertilizer, paint, etc. etc.
Answer
Hi Sandra,
This question cannot be answered generally. We have to look at the composition of the product in question for this. I give a few examples:
– substances such as White Spirit and aspirin consist of 100% petroleum.
– Some substances consist only partly of petroleum. An example of this is PVC, polyvinyl chloride. This plastic is used for the well-known gray drainage pipes, floor tiles (“vinyl”) and inflatable toys. The formula of this is [CH2-CHCl] and this basic unit is repeated a large number of times. The two carbon atoms (C) and the three hydrogen atoms (H) in it come from petroleum, the chlorine (Cl) comes from table salt. You can now calculate that 43% of PVC goes back to petroleum, and the rest to table salt.
– some substances have a more complex composition, which makes the calculation more difficult. Paint, for example, consists of binder and solvent (both of which usually, but not always, come from petroleum) and pigment, which is normally a mineral product (alongside smaller amounts of additives). The exact amounts of all these substances are not always easy to determine.
I hope this was an answer that helped you.
Answered by
Dr. Etienne Jooken
Chemistry
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
.