Petroleum refining industries

In addition to emissions to atmosphere, some plants have caused contamination of ground water by releasing cooling and process water. 

ASPHALT AND ROAD OR LUBRICANT NAPHTHA SaVENTS WAXES 

NAPHTHA PROPYLeME ETHANE BUTYLENE PROPANE BENZEPC BUTANE TOLUENE ETHYLENE XYLENE ETC. 

Toluene, xylenes, and benzene constitute the majority of solvent emissions since they are native components of crude oil. Methyl ethyl ketone is also emitted in large quantities because of its use in lube oil dewaxing. 

Pollution prevention will become increasingly important to the petroleum industry as federal, state and municipal regulations become more stringent and waste disposal cost rises. The industry estimates that to comply with 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments it will require investment of 35-40 billion. Actions required to decrease pollution include process equipment modification, waste segregation and separation, recycling, and better training and supervision. 

Coalescent Type Type of Species Examples Comments 

Type AB Diesters Di-isobutyl adipate Coasol, Lusolvan 

Type AB Ester alcohols Diol Monoesters Texanol 

Type ABC Glycol esters Glycol ester ethers PGDA Butyldiglycol acetate  

Type ABC Ether alcohols diethers PnBS 2-Butoxyethanol Dow Products BASF and others 

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The series Petroleum Reflning" will comprise five volumes covering the following aspects of the petroleum refining industry ... 

Urea has the remarkable property of forming crystalline complexes or adducts with straight-chain organic compounds. These crystalline complexes consist of a hoUow channel, formed by the crystallized urea molecules, in which the hydrocarbon is completely occluded. Such compounds are known as clathrates. The type of hydrocarbon occluded, on the basis of its chain length, is determined by the temperature at which the clathrate is formed. This property of urea clathrates is widely used in the petroleum-refining industry for the production of jet aviation fuels (see Aviation and other gas-TURBINE fuels) and for dewaxing of lubricant oils (see also Petroleum, refinery processes). The clathrates are broken down by simply dissolving urea in water or in alcohol. 

The impetus to develop the petroleum refining industry came from several changes in life-styles. The increased needs for illuminants, for fuel to drive the factories of the industrial revolution, for gasoline to power the automobiles, as well as the demand for aviation fuel, all contributed to the increased use of petroleum. 

This section describes the major industrial processes within the petroleum refining industry, ineluding the materials and equipment used, and the processes employed. The section is necessary for an understanding of the interrelationships between the industrial processes, the types of air emissions, and control and pollution prevention approaehes. Deseriptions of eommonly used production processes, assoeiated raw materials, by-produets produeed are first deseribed. Petroleum refining is the physieal, thermal, and chemical separation of erude oil into its major distillation fraetions, which are then further proeessed through a series of separation and eonversion steps into finished petroleum produets. The primary products of the industry fall into three major categories ... 

Relatively large volumes of water are used by the petroleum refining industry. Four types of wastewater are produced surface water runoff, cooling water, process water, and sanitary wastewater. Surface water runoff is intermittent and... 

When discussing material outputs of the petroleum refining industry, it is important to note the relationship between the outputs of the industry itself and the outputs resulting from the use of refmery products. Petroleum refineries play an important role in the U.S. economy, supplying approximately 40% of the total energy used in the U.S. and virtually all of the energy consumed in the transportation sector. 

According to TRI data, the petroleum refining industry releases (discharges to the air, water, or land without treatment) and transfers (shipped off-site) a total of 482 million pounds of pollutants per year, made up of 103 different chemicals. This represents about 11 % of the total pounds of TRI chemicals released and transferred by all manufacturers in a year. In comparison, the chemical industry generates on the average 2.5 billion pounds per year, accounting for 33% of all releases and transfers. 

Overall, the petroleum refining industry s releases declined between 1988 and... 

Additionally, the equipment used in the petroleum refining industry are very... 

Naphtha is a generic term normally used in the petroleum refining industry for the overhead liquid fraction obtained from atmospheric distillation units. The approximate boiling range of light straight-run naphtha (LSR) is 35-90°C, while it is about 80-200°C for heavy straight-run naphtha (HSR). ... 

Solvent extraction may also be used to reduce asphaltenes and metals from heavy fractions and residues before using them in catalytic cracking. The organic solvent separates the resids into demetallized oil with lower metal and asphaltene content than the feed, and asphalt with high metal content. Figure 3-2 shows the IFP deasphalting process and Table 3-2 shows the analysis of feed before and after solvent treatment. Solvent extraction is used extensively in the petroleum refining industry. Each process uses its selective solvent, but, the basic principle is the same as above. 

In the petroleum refining industry, hydrogen is essentially obtained from catalytic naphtha reforming, where it is a coproduct with reformed gasoline. 

Zeolite A is by far the most widely produced synthetic zeolite, with an annual production of some 1.3 million tonnes. As may be expected from this large volume its main use is not as a catalyst but as a detergent builder (Box 4.2). Since about 1970 the use of zeolite catalysts has provided huge economic and environmental benefits to the bulk chemical and petroleum refining industries. 

The activity and decay behaviour of the different porous heteropolycompounds were compared in two reactions requiring strong acid sites the n-butane isomerization and the isobutane/2-butene alkylation. Although these two reactions are important in the petroleum refining industry, n-butane isomerization is often used as a "test reaction" since it is known that this reaction requires very strong acid sites and only a limited number of oxides are active in this reaction, under mild conditions (T = 473 K). 

Rusin, M., andL. Hofmann. December 13,1991. Serious Incidents in the U.S. Petroleum Refining Industry, 1985-1989. American Petroleum Institute. 

Wang, L.K. and Wang, M.H.S., Control of Hazardous Wastes in Petroleum Refining Industry, Technical Paper (No. LIR/1080/2) presented at the 6th Annual Convention of the CAAPS, New York City, NY, October 1980. 

State Programs Affecting the Petroleum Refining Industry... 

Fenster, D. E., 1990, Hazardous Waste Laws, Regulations, and Taxes for the U.S. Petroleum Refining Industry. Pen Well Books, Tulsa, OK, 215 pp. 

The petrochemical industry also includes the treatment of hydrocarbon streams from the petroleum refining industry and natural gas liquids from the oil and gas production industry. Some of the raw materials used in the petrochemical industry include petroleum, natural gas, ethane, hydrocarbons, naphtha, heavy fractions. 

In general, waste streams from the petrochemical industry are quite similar to those of the petroleum refining industry. Limited data are available, but almost all assume that waste management operations and facilities are probably of the same degree of sophistication as those of the petroleum refining industry. 

EPA. 1995. Profile of the Petroleum Refining Industry. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC. 

Table 5.2. Chronology of Environmental Events and Regulations in the United States (Not Necessarily Related to the Petroleum Refining Industry)...

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