Catalytic cracking is an industrial process used to convert high-molecular-mass hydrocarbons to low-molecular-mass hydrocarbons. A petroleum company has a huge supply of heating oil stored as straight chain C17H36, and demand has picked up for shorter chain hydrocarbons to be used in formulating gasoline. The company uses catalytic cracking to create the shorter chains necessary for gasoline. If they produce two molecules in the cracking, and 1-octene is one of them, what is the formula of the other molecule produced?
1 answer
If C17H36 is one and C8H16 is the other, what is left? Could it be C9H20?