the.com/petrochemical
Oil's glow-up from fuel tank to everything you touch before breakfast.
means A chemical derived from petroleum or natural gas, used as the raw material for plastics, synthetic fibers, fertilizers, and countless other industrial products.
from A 20th-century compound built from Greek-via-Latin 'petro-' (rock, from petra, 'rock' or 'stone' — petroleum literally means 'rock oil') plus 'chemical.' The word rode in on the boom of the modern oil-refining and plastics industries, once chemists learned to crack crude oil into building blocks for synthetic materials rather than just burning it for fuel.
- origin
- byproduct of refining crude oil and natural gas
- hidden empire
- plastics, fertilizers, perfume, and aspirin all trace back here
- scale
- over 6000 everyday products contain petrochemical derivatives
- irony
- demand keeps rising even as fuel demand plateaus