Petrochemical industry fuels

TURBINE fuels), are both in demand. Solvent extraction is also extensively used to meet the growing demand for the high purity aromatics such as ben2ene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) as feedstocks for the petrochemical industry (see BTX PROCESSING FEEDSTOCKS,PETROCHEMICALS). Additionally, the separation of aromatics from aUphatics is one of the largest appHcations of solvent extraction (see Petroleum, refinery processes survey). 

The development of natural gas as a fuel source in the UK has led to reductions in tar acid supplies and this has prompted the petrochemicals industry to make... 

Crude oils are refined to separate the mixture into simpler fractions that can be used as fuels, lubricants, or as intermediate feedstock to the petrochemical industries. A general knowledge of this composite mixture is essential for establishing a processing strategy. 

Why Do We Need to Know This Material All life on Earth is based on carbon so is the fuel we burn, our food, and the clothes we wear. Therefore, to understand a major part of the everyday world, we need to be familiar with the chemistry of this extraordinary element. Compounds of carbon and hydrogen are the foundation of the petrochemical industry petroleum products are used to generate electricity and to heat our homes. They are also used to make the flexible, strong polymeric and composite materials that make modern communication and transportation possible. 

Petroleum hydrocarbons are used as automotive fuels and as monomers for the production of a range of plastics. They provide the basis of the petrochemical industry and the halogenated derivatives, which are discussed in Part 2 of this chapter. 

Before the advent of the petrochemical industry carbocyclic aromatic compounds, such as naphthalene, phenol, and pyridine, provided the source of many important industrial chemicals including dyestuffs, while the monocyclic compounds continue to play an important role as fuels and starting materials. 

Petroleum is rarely used in the form produced at the well, but is converted in refineries into a wide range of products, such as gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and domestic and industrial fuel oils, together with petrochemical feedstocks such as ethylene, propylene, butene, butadiene, and isoprene. Petroleum is refined, that is, it is separated into useful products (Figure 1.1 Chapter 3). 

The current trend throughout the refining industry is to produce more fuel products from each barrel of petroleum and to process those products in different ways to meet product specifications for use in various (automobile, diesel, aircraft, and marine) engines. Overall, the demand for liquid fuels has expanded rapidly and demand has developed for gas oils and fuels for domestic central heating and fuel oil for power generation, as well as for hght distillates and other inputs, derived from crude oil, for the petrochemical industries. 

Fuel gas or refinery gas is produced in considerable quantities during the various refining processes and is used as fuel for the refinery itself and as an important feedstock for the petrochemical industry. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is frequently used as domestic bottled gas for cooking and heating, and forms an important feedstock for the petrochemical industry. It is also used in industry for cutting metals. 

Propylene, like ethylene, is a colorless gas at room temperature. It is as flammable as LPG (liquefied petroleum gas or propane). In fact, propylene can be used as a. substitute or supplement to LPG. The fuel characteristics are nearly indistinguishable. However, the petrochemicals industry bids propylene away from the fuels market and gives it a much higher price than LPG. 

Whac has been the fastest growing use of methanol is not in the petrochemical industry at all but in the automotive fuel business. As much as 40% of the methanol produced ends up in gasoline via two routes, the manufacture of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline-blending compound, and as a direct substitute for gasoline—either in part as a gasohol blend or in total. 

The separation of organic mixtures into groups of components of similar chemical type was one of the earliest applications of solvent extraction. In this chapter the term solvent is used to define the extractant phase that may contain either an extractant in a diluent or an organic compound that can itself act as an extractant. Using this technique, a solvent that preferentially dissolves aromatic compounds can be used to remove aromatics from kerosene to produce a better quality fuel. In the same way, solvent extraction can be used to produce high-purity aromatic extracts from catalytic reformates, aromatics that are essentially raw materials in the production of products such as polystyrene, nylon, and Terylene. These features have made solvent extraction a standard technique in the oil-refining and petrochemical industries. The extraction of organic compounds, however, is not confined to these industries. Other examples in this chapter include the production of pharmaceuticals and environmental processes. 

Rapid escalation of natural gas and oil prices has not only once again made coal an economically attractive industrial fuel per se but also brought it into focus as a resource from which, in future, petrochemical feedstocks, fuel gas and synthetic liquid hydrocarbons could be produced. 

Methane is the principal gas found with coal and oil deposits and is a major fuel and chemical used is the petrochemical industry. Slightly less than 20% of the worlds energy needs are supplied by natural gas. The United States get about 30% of its energy needs from natural gas. Methane can be synthesized industrially through several processes such as the Sabatier method, Fischer Tropsch process, and steam reforming. The Sabatier process, named for Frenchman Paul Sabatier (1854—1941), the 1912 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry from France, involves the reaction of carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a nickel or ruthenium metal catalyst C02 + 4H2 —> CH4 + 2H20. 

Propane s greatest use is not as a fuel but in the petrochemical industry as a feedstock. As an alkane, it undergoes typical alkane reactions of combustion, halogenation, pyrolysis, and oxidation. Pyrolysis or cracking of propane at several hundred degrees Celsius and elevated pressure in combination with metal catalysts result in dehydrogenation. Dehydrogenation is a primary source of ethylene and propylene ... 

---