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Posts Tagged ‘Oil’

An oil is a substance that is in a viscous liquid state (“oily”) at ambient temperatures or slightly warmer, and is both hydrophobic (immiscible with water) and lipophilic (miscible with other oils, literally). This general definition includes compound classes with otherwise unrelated chemical structures, properties, and uses, including vegetable oils, petrochemical oils, and volatile essential oils. Oil is a nonpolar substance.
The term oil is often used colloquially to refer to petroleum.

Types of oils
Mineral oil
All oils, with their high carbon and hydrogen content, can be traced back to organic sources. Mineral oils, found in porous rocksunderground, are no exception, as they were originally the organic material, such as dead plankton, accumulated on the seafloor in geologically ancient times. Through various geochemical processes this material was converted to mineral oil, or petroleum, and its components,  such as kerosene, paraffin waxes, gasoline, diesel and such. These are classified as mineral oils as they do not have an organic origin on human timescales, and are instead
derived from underground geologic locations, ranging from rocks, to underground traps, to sands.
Other oily substances can also be found in the environment, the most well-known being asphalt, occurring naturally underground or, where there are leaks, in tar pits.
Petroleum and other mineral oils, (specifically labelled as petrochemicals), have become such a crucial resource to human civilization in modern times they are often referred to by the ubiquitous term of “oil” itself.

Organic oil
Oils are also produced by plants, animals and other organisms through organic processes, and these oils are remarkable in their diversity.
Oil is a somewhat vague term to use chemically, and the scientific term for oils, fats, waxes, cholesterol and other oily substances found in living things and their secretions, is lipids.  Lipids, ranging from waxes to steroids, are somewhat hard to characterize, and are united in a group almost solely based on the fact that they all repel, or refuse to dissolve,
in water, and are however comfortably miscible in other liquid lipids. They also have a high carbon and hydrogen content, and are considerably lacking in oxygen compared to other organic compounds and minerals.