Petroleum, hydrocarbon products from

Earth Tech s bioremediation facihty can only accept and treat soils contaminated by virgin petroleum hydrocarbons generated from leaking underground storage tank sites and is not permitted for used petroleum products containing metals, such as waste oils. 

Acrylonitrile is obtained from propylene and ammonia. 1,3-Butadiene is a petroleum hydrocarbon obtained from the C4 fraction of steam cracking. An overview on the issues of the production of butadiene is given in the literature (5). Styrene monomer is made by the dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene, which is obtained by the Friedel-Crafts reaction of ethylene and benzene. 

Majority MAE applications have been in the extraction of PAHs, PCBs, pesticides, phenols, and total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) from environmental samples. MAE has also been used in the extraction of contaminants and nutrients from foodstuffs, active gradients from pharmaceutical products, and organic additives from polymer/plastics. Table 3.14 lists some typical applications. Readers interested in the details of MAE applications can find more information in some recent reviews [85-87],... 

Accumulation of point sources from land use of petroleum products also can affect surface waters. For example, urban riverine inputs of volatile hydrocarbons to the marine environment have been studied in the coastal waters of Spain by Gomez-Belinchon et al. (1991). Volatile petroleum hydrocarbon inputs from two rivers were found to account for a mass flux of 47tyr and 96tyr of alkylbenzenes and 38tyr and 66 tyr of w-alkanes each. Although this was a significant mass flux, the... 

Purification and Modification of Hydrocarbon Products firom Coal Tar and Petroleum. As indicated by A arious industrial patents in this field, formaldehA de has been found to be of value in the purification and modification of A arious hydrocarbon products from petroleum and coal tar. It also finds application in the synthesis of addition agents for improving commercial pi-oducts of this tyT>e. 

The feedstocks used ia the production of petroleum resias are obtaiaed mainly from the low pressure vapor-phase cracking (steam cracking) and subsequent fractionation of petroleum distillates ranging from light naphthas to gas oil fractions, which typically boil ia the 20—450°C range (16). Obtaiaed from this process are feedstreams composed of atiphatic, aromatic, and cycloatiphatic olefins and diolefins, which are subsequently polymerized to yield resias of various compositioas and physical properties. Typically, feedstocks are divided iato atiphatic, cycloatiphatic, and aromatic streams. Table 2 illustrates the predominant olefinic hydrocarbons obtained from steam cracking processes for petroleum resia synthesis (18). 

Manufacture of Monomers. The monomers of the greatest interest are those produced by oligomerization of ethylene (qv) and propylene (qv). Some olefins are also available as by-products from refining of petroleum products or as the products of hydrocarbon (qv) thermal cracking. 

SASOL. SASOL, South Africa, has constmcted a plant to recover 50,000 tons each of 1-pentene and 1-hexene by extractive distillation from Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbons produced from coal-based synthesis gas. The company is marketing both products primarily as comonomers for LLDPE and HDPE (see Olefin polymers). Although there is still no developed market for 1-pentene in the mid-1990s, the 1-hexene market is well estabhshed. The Fischer-Tropsch technology produces a geometric carbon-number distribution of various odd and even, linear, branched, and alpha and internal olefins however, with additional investment, other odd and even carbon numbers can also be recovered. The Fischer-Tropsch plants were originally constmcted to produce gasoline and other hydrocarbon fuels to fill the lack of petroleum resources in South Africa. 

In the wood rosin process, rosin is isolated from aged pine stumps that have been left in fields cleared for farming or lumbering operations. The stumps are cut and shredded to pieces the size of matchsticks. The wood chips are then extracted with an appropriate solvent, eg, aUphatic or aromatic petroleum hydrocarbons or ketones. The extract is fractionally separated into nonvolatile cmde rosin, volatile extractibles, and recovered solvent. The dark rosin is usually refined further to lighter-colored products using selective solvents or absorption. 

Petroleum engineers are traditionally involved in activities known in the oil industry as the front end of the petroleum fuel cycle (petroleum is either liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons derived from natural deposits—reservoirs—in the earth). These front end activities are namely exploration (locating and proving out the new geological provinces with petroleum reservoirs that may be exploited in the future), and development (the systematic drilling, well completion, and production of economically producible reservoirs). Once the raw petroleum fluids (e.g., crude oil and natural gas) have been produced from the earth, the back end of the fuel cycle takes the produced raw petroleum fluids and refines the.se fluids into useful products. 

Simple aromatic hydrocarbons come from two main sources coal and petroleum. Coal is an enormously complex mixture made up primarily of large arrays of benzene-like rings joined together. Thermal breakdown of coal occurs when it is heated to 1000 °C in the absence of air, and a mixture of volatile products called coal for boils off. Fractional distillation of coal tar yields benzene, toluene, xylene (dimethylbenzene), naphthalene, and a host of other aromatic compounds (Figure 15.1). 

Fumaric acid is used in the plastics industry, in the food industry and as a source of malic add. Although demand has increased rapidly over the last 30 years its production from fermentation has been totally replaced by a chemical method. It is now produced far more cheaply by the catalytic oxidation of hydrocarbons, particularly benzene. With the continuing uncertainties concerning the availability and cost of petroleum, however, fermentation may yet be a viable alternative. 

Considerable interest arose during the 1970 s and 1980 s in the use of micro-organisms to produce useful fatty adds and related compounds from hydrocarbons derived from the petroleum industry. During this period, a large number of patents were granted in Europe, USA and Japan protecting processes leading to the production of alkanols, alkyl oxides, ketones, alkanoic adds, alkane dioic acids and surfactants from hydrocarbons. Many of these processes involved the use of bacteria and yeasts associated with hydrocarbon catabolism. 

Most hydraulic fluid preparations start as chemical mixtures. For instance, there is a considerable area of overlap in the specific petroleum hydrocarbon chemicals contained in the mineral oil and polyalphaolefin hydraulic fluids. For all classes of hydraulic fluids, there may be similarities with other original products intended for use as lubricants. The complications involved in documenting the environmental fate of mixtures increase under conditions encountered at many NPL sites, where it may be hard to determine the precise original product associated with chemicals identified at an area in need of remediation. In most instances, available peer-reviewed literature, supplemented with data obtained from manufacturers of particular formulations and information in trade magazines, can supply information about the original hydraulic fluid preparations. At NPL sites, site-specific evaluations of specific chemicals may be the only feasible way to address concerns over environmental fate and potential exposure risks. 

Carbon dioxide and water are the major waste products from most natural and industrial processes and hence are found in large quantities in the environment. If an efficient and cheap means could be found, the reduction of C02 could provide a potentially rich source of carbon for utilisation in the production of, for example, synthetic hydrocarbon fuels to replace petroleum, formic and oxalic acids for the chemical industries and foodstuffs such as glucose. 

MERICAT A process for removing mercaptans from petroleum fractions by a combination of catalytic oxidation and extraction with aqueous sodium hydroxide, using a proprietary contactor based on a bundle of hollow fibers. The sulfur products are disulfides, which remain in the hydrocarbon product. Developed by the Merichem Company, Houston, TX, and used in 61 plants as of 1991. Mericat II is a variation which includes a carbon bed too there were four installations as of 1991. See also Thiolex. 

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