How naphtha is made
Naphtha is the light liquid that boils off crude oil, and steam crackers turn it into the building blocks of plastic.
- stations
- 5
- things upstream
- 4
- raw sources
- 3
- steps from the ground
- 2
The short version
Naphtha is made by heating crude oil in a furnace and feeding it into a tall distillation tower. Light liquid collects near the top, above the kerosene and diesel cuts. A hydrogen treater removes sulfur, and the naphtha is sent to a steam cracker to make plastics or to a reformer to be turned into gasoline.
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Wash the crude
Crude oil is mixed with fresh water to dissolve salt, then spun or charged in an electric field so that the salty water drops out. Salt left in the oil would corrode the equipment ahead.
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Heat it in a furnace
The crude flows through coiled pipes inside a furnace and leaves as a hot mix of liquid and vapor. It is pumped into the bottom of the distillation tower.
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Split it in a tower
Vapor rises through a tall column of trays, cooling as it climbs. Each fraction condenses at its own height, and the light naphtha collects near the top, well above the heavier kerosene and diesel.
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Strip out sulfur
Naphtha is passed over a catalyst with hydrogen, which turns sulfur compounds into hydrogen sulfide gas that is removed. Later catalysts are sensitive to sulfur, so this protects them.
Goes in -
Send it to crackers or reformers
Steam crackers use naphtha to make plastic building blocks, and reformers use it to make high-octane gasoline blending stock. A small share ends up in camp stoves as white gas.
Worth repeating
- Naphtha has such a low boiling point that it is sold in camping stores as white gas for stoves and lanterns.
- Crude oil was distilled by Persian chemists, with clear descriptions in handbooks, centuries before modern refineries.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and naphtha starts as these 3 raw sources.
Open the whole family tree
Where it goes next
Naphtha feeds 11 lines directly and reaches 409 things in total.
Further down the line
Keep walking
Sources
Cite this page: "How naphtha is made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/naphtha