Diesel fuel from distilled petroleum

Raw petroleum (crude oil) is extracted from underground around the globe in a variety of ways and refined for tens of thousands of applications in our everyday lives. Crude oil is refined into usable petroleum products through several unique processes. Fractional distillation is the process used to efficiently extract or "distill" products that are a mixture of chemicals such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and kerosene or may selectively extract pure chemical compounds or petrochemicals such as... 

Vegetable oils have the potential to substitute a fraction of petroleum distillates and petroleum-based petrochemicals in the near future. Possible acceptable converting processes of vegetable oils into reusable products are transesterification, solvent extraction, cracking and pyrolysis. Pyrolysis has received a significant amount of interest as this gives products of better quality compared to any other thermochemical process. The liquid fuel produced from vegetable oil pyrolysis has similar chemical components to conventional petroleum diesel fuel. 

Source Detected in distilled water-soluble fractions of 87 octane gasoline (24.0 mg/L), 94 octane gasoline (80.7 mg/L), Gasohol (32.3 mg/L), No. 2 fuel oil (0.50 mg/L), jet fuel A (0.23 mg/L), diesel fuel (0.28 mg/L), militaryjet fuel JP-4 (17.6 mg/L) (Potter, 1996), new motor oil (0.37-0.40 jg/L), and used motor oil (195-198 Jg/L) (Chen et ah, 1994). Diesel fuel obtained from a service station in Schlieren, Switzerland contained benzene at a concentration of 76 mg/L (Schluep et al, 2001). The average volume percent and estimated mole fraction in American Petroleum Institute PS-6 gasoline were 2.082 and 0.2969, respectively (Poulsen et al, 1992). Schauer et al. (1999) reported benzene in a diesel-powered medium-duty truck exhaust at an emission rate of 2,740 pg/km. 

The distillate manufacturing processes of diesel fuel oils, such as fuel oil 1-D and fuel oil 2-D, are similar to those of fuel oil no. 1 and fuel oil no. 2, respectively (lARC 1989). Fuel oil no. 1-D is manufactured from a straight-run distillate process. Diesel fuel oil (1-D, 2-D) is defined as the fraction of petroleum that distills after kerosene (Air Force 1989). Fuel oil no. 2-D is also made from mixing of straight-run and catalytically cracked distillates (LARC 1989). 

The saturates remain the major component in the mid-distillate fractions of petroleum but aromatics, which now include simple compounds with up to three aromatic rings, and heterocyclic compounds are present and represent a larger portion of the total. Kerosene, jet fuel and diesel fuel are all derived from middle distillate fractions and can also be obtained from cracked and hydropro-cessed refinery streams. 

If there is a petroleum shortage in the future the problem will be to provide a portion of the demand for transportation fuels from coal. Transportation fuels—jet, diesel, and gasoline—are distillates boiling below 650°F. However, the quantity of such distillates in primary coal liquids is small. 

A thin, volatile oil distilled from petroleum, with a boiling range higher than that of gasoline and lower than that of diesel fuel. Kerosene was once used in lanterns and heaters, but now most of this petroleum fraction is further refined for use as jet fuel. (p. 98)... 

Diesel fuels are complex mixtures of hydrocarbons defined by physical and chemical properties. Petroleum diesel fuels are based on molecules with 9 to 20 carbon atoms and a boiling range between 170°C and 350°C (10). These fuels are produced by sequential chemical treatments and refining of heavy petroleum oils followed by distillation. In general, specifications for fuels are inclusive so as not to exclude compositions with similar operational characteristics. However, environmental concerns regarding toxic emissions from diesel engines have led to legislation that has forced manufacturers to modify diesel fuel chemistry (11). 

Acenaphthene is a component of crude oil and a product of combustion, which may be produced and released to the environment during natural fires. Emissions from petroleum refining, coal tar distillation, coal combustion, and diesel fueled engines are the major contributors of acenaphthene to the environment. Acenaphthene is used as a chemical intermediate and may be released to the environment via manufacturing effluents and the disposal of manufacturing waste by-products. Because of the widespread use of acenaphthene in a variety of products, acenaphthene may also be released to the environment through landfills, municipal waste... 

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