Oil, fossil

Although chemistry as an emperical fundamental didpline has a long history, its application in industry gained importance after the introduction of the use of fossil energy sources during the industrial revolution. The chemical industry withdraws non-renewable materials, mainly fossil oil, from the earth s reserves to use as an energy source and as fossil oil a source of raw materials for production processes. The products so produced are rather... 

For abiotic stock resources, the resource value is set as equal to the production and environmental cost for a sustainable alternative. For fossil oil, gas and coal, these alternatives are rapeseed oil, biogas and charcoal, respectively. For metal (metal ores), the production and environmental costs to upgrade low-quality ores (sustainable supplies), such as silicate minerals, to a quality similar to present day ores, using a bioenergy-driven process (near-sustainable process), is used as the resource value. 

The two main societal issues that create a need to reconsider the current use of fossil fuels are the cogeneration of C02 in stoichiometric ratio to carbon used in the fuel and depletion of fossil oil reserves. 

So far little has been said on the future for raw materials to the chemical industry. Clearly, the molecular components of oil are of great value and hence the primary concern should be the limitation of fossil oil reserves in energy production. Also, the amount of oil used for the chemicals industry is orders of magnitude less than for energy use. 

Table 6.4 Physical characteristics and elemental composition of bio- and fossil-oils [53].

Depletion of fossil oil resources and concern about environmental pollution, especially heavy metals and greenhouse gases, have brought biomass into focus as a renewable source of raw materials for large-scale chemicals and energy production (1). The biomass refinery of the future will require a powerful toolbox of processes for converting complex plant matter into useful commodity and specialty products. 

The production of aquatic biomass focusing initially only on energy production may represent a risky operation, taking into consideration today s large fluctuations in the price of fossil-based oil. As noted above, with fossil-oil prices currently below US 120 per barrel, algal biodiesel is barely competitive with diesel from fossil fuels. However, if the oil price were to exceed US 120 per barrel, then biodiesel from aquatic biomass may become economically viable [21, 22],... 

Figure 17 Ternary diagram showing the relative amounts of PAHs from different sourees (fossil oil, eombustion produets and natural biologieal aetivity) and distinguished on a eountry basis (From Tolosa et al, 20042 )...

In most industrialised countries the investor can choose between the application of a biomass technology and a conventional alternative. The conventional alternative for the investor is normally to produce heat with a fossil oil/gas boiler and/or to buy electricity from utilities. This is specified as the standard situation in this paper. 

Pyrolysis oil in principal can be used as feedstock for processes in chemical production and as fuel for burners (similar to fossil oil burners), for special Diesel engines and for gas turbines etc. In this paper the use as fuel for Diesel engines is selected, as at the moment it seems to be the most promising way for economical reasons. 

Cost of conventional alternatives (Table i) have been collected in spring 2000 for the situation in Austria and reflect the cost, that private and companies have to pay for producing heat with fossil oil/gas and purchasing power from the grid instead of operating a biomass application. 

In these tests, usual carbon steel was wittingly used, as the aim was to test combustion of pyrolysis oil in a common fossil oil burner system. The pipeline and the heat exchanger of pyrolysis oil feed were of St 37.4 DIN 2391 precision steel pipe (size 10 X 1), so-called Ermeto-pipe. The pipeline clearly corroded during the tests, vririch was also seen in an increase in the iron content of oil. It is self-evident that the durability of materials, both steel and seals, has to be ensured in the design of a special pyrolysis oil burner and fuel line to it. 

FeCl -clay chromatography All fossil oil samples were frac-... 

Table I. Nitrogen Content and Separation Ability of FeCly-Clay Chromatographic Column on Fossil Oil Samples...

Biomass carbonization oils constitute an important source of chemicals and, more recently, an alternative to fossil oils as energy source. Phenol derivatives (alkyl- and methoxyphenols, alkyldihydroxybenzenes, hydroxybenzaldehydes) and naphthol derivatives were determined by the MEC method. ... 

Aromatic organosulfur compounds such as thiophenes, benzothiophenes and dibenzothiophenes are frequently contained in fossil oil and their sulfur atoms are generally difficult to remove in HDS process [106], In the industrial HDS process, Mo/Co/S or Ni/Mo/S heterogeneous catalysts supported on alumina are widely employed. In order to obtain ideas to develop more efficient catalysts as well as to shed some light on their mechanisms at a molecular level, transition metal complex-mediated cleavages of C-S bond are extensively studied. On the other hand, thiiranes and thietanes are frequently employed for preparation of transition metal sulfides, in which their C-S bonds are smoothly cleaved. In this section, the C-S bond cleavages of thiophene derivatives, thiiranes, thietanes, vinylic sulfides, allylic sulfides, thiols and dithioacetals are overviewed. 

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