Refining commercial-scale

Aromatic Isocyanates. A variety of methods are described in the Hterature for the synthesis of aromatic isocyanates. Only the phosgenation of amines or amine salts is used on a commercial scale (5). Much process refinement has occurred to minimise the formation of disubstituted ureas arising by the reaction of the generated isocyanate with the amine starting material. A listing of the key commercially available isocyanates is presented in Table 1. 

At the start of the nineteenth century, platinum was refined in a scientific manner by William Hyde WoUaston, resulting in the successful production of malleable platinum on a commercial scale. During the course of the analytical work, WoUaston discovered paUadium, rhodium, indium, and osmium. Ruthenium was not discovered until 1844, when work was conducted on the composition of platinum ores from the Ural Mountains. 

Commercial-scale application of solvents coming under the category of neutral reagents is largely found as applied to the nuclear industry materials, as in example, for the separation and refining of uranium, plutonium, thorium, zirconium, and niobium. A process flowsheet for extracting niobium and tantalum from various resources is shown in Figure 5.23. It will... 

The enzymes and biomolecules of interest for the oil industry, as described in Chapter 3, are not manufactured at commercial scale. Consequently, the oil refining sector is not attended for any of the listed companies, so far. However, a small proportion of products are marketed to satisfy the bioremediation needs of the Oil Upstream Segment. 

After Werner von Bolton of Charlottenburg succeeded in 1903 in refining the metal, it soon acquired a limited use as filaments (34). It was found, moreover, that surgical and dental instruments made from it can be sterilized by heating or by immersion in adds without damage to the tantalum. Since the price was almost prohibitive, however, Dr. Balke set to work in Chicago to make the metal on a commercial scale. 

The technical working of massive platinum should be ascribed, however, to Thomas Cock, a brother-in-law of the platinum-refiner P. N. Johnson, rather than to Wollaston. Cock worked out the process in William Allen s laboratory at Plough Court and, at Allen s request, communicated it to Wollaston (51). According to G. Matthey, P. N. Johnson was the first to manufacture platinum on a commercial scale and the first to prepare a large and perfect sheet of the pure metal. James Lewis Howe has stated that Chabaneau s process was rediscovered by Knight and possibly also by Cock (72). 

This process, while capable of eliminating the asphaltic materials present in heavy stocks, has not been applied solely for this purpose on a commercial scale. Possibly with, an increasing scarcity of crude petroleum, this type of hydrogenation will be incorporated into refining operations in future to convert asphaltic materials to more useful products. 

A number of refiners have processed residue containing feedstocks in commercial FCC units. Feeds with as much as 5.1%w RCR ( 6.5%w CCR) and 85 ppm Ni + V have been processed in Phillips Borger Refinery.(4) Ashland has processed feedstocks of up to 7.1%w RCR ( 8.5%w CCR) and 85 ppm Ni + V in their RCC (Reduced Crude Conversion) process.(5,6) A commercial scale ART (Asphalt Residual Treating) unit has processed residues containing levels of contaminants as high as 13.5%w RCR and 300 ppm Ni + V (7,8). However, in typical day-to-day operation of residue cat crackers, feedstock quality is not as extreme as those illustrated above. 

The demonstration plant is expected to confirm the operability and reliability of those process steps and certain process equipment which have not yet been proven in commercial scale equipment in the operating environment of coal refining. Certain aspects of the engineering development of these areas are discussed, as shown in Table 1. 

The direct liquefaction technologies, which include Solvent Refined Coal, Exxon Donor Solvent and H-Coal processes have never been operated at a commercial scale. As discussed yesterday, these processes are not at advanced stages of development. The products from direct liquefaction processes are basically boiler fuels or synthetic crudes that could potentially be upgraded to... 

Nickel was first refined on a commercial scale at Schneeberg, Saxony, and for some years its chief ores were those occurring in the cobalt deposits of Saxony and Bohemia. In 1838 Swedish pyrrhotite ores were found to contain nickel, and a plant was erected for working them. Nickel was also found in certain Norwegian sulphidie ores, and these soon became the main source of the world s nickel supply, to be superseded in 1877 by the New Caledonian ore, Gamierite. In 1886 sulphidie ores from Sudbury, Ontario, made their appearance on the market, and since 1905 have been the main source of commercial nickel. 

Thus, the ACR scale criteria has been verified under the extreme condition of directly scaling from a pilot to a full-scale reactor. This allows the smaller scale ACR demonstration unit to be designed with confidence. As required, the data from the demonstration unit will be used to further refine the scaling techniques before the commercial ACR process design is finalized. 

Commercial-Scale Refining of Paraho Crude Shale Oil into Military Specification Fuels... 

Robinson, E. T. Wasilk, N. J. "The Commercial Scale Refining of Paraho Crude Shale Oil into Military Specification Fuels," in this book. 

ORIGIN/INDUSTRY SOURCES/USES produced from coal tar processing, petroleum refining, heat and power generation sources no commercial-scale production produced and distributed for research purposes, extensively in cancer research by-product of chemical production, combustion of tobacco and fuels... 

Vegetable oils, especially the seed oils, are rich sources of tocopherols. Refining waste from the edible oil industry has emerged as an important raw material for the extraction of vitamin E, and the residues of the soybean refining industry are one such source. Tocotrienols, on the other hand, are found predominantly in palm oil and in cereals such as barley and rice bran oils. With the emergence of palm oil as the second largest edible oil in world markets, technological advances have been made to similarly extract tocotrienol-rich palm vitamin E from the refinery wastes of the industry. The resultant product, often termed palm tocotrienol-rich fraction (TRF), is currently available on a commercial scale from Malaysia. A similar tocotrienol-rich vitamin E preparation derived from rice bran oil is also available in the U.S. 

A process for the fractional crystallization of a melt in a countercurrent column was first patented by P. M. Arnold in 1951. In 1961, H. Schildkneeht utilized a spiral conveyor to transport the solids up or down the column. These techniques, together with other later refinements, may now be seen in several commercial-scale melt crystallizers. 

Many vegetable oils available on a commercial scale are rich in linoleic acid and are employed extensively for dietary purposes in a refined state or after some... 

Purification or refining of rare earths. The separation of rare earths from thorium can be performed in different ways depending on the production scale. Small laboratory-scale methods used first the fractional crystalhzation of nitrates, followed by the fractional thermal decomposition of nitrates. Pilot-scale separation can be achieved by ion exchange. Large commercial-scale separation is based only on the solvent-extraction process of an aqueous nitrate solution with n-tributyl phosphate (TBP) dissolved in kerosene. 

Electrolysis of lead fluosilicate solutions is well established for lead refining by the Betts process, as detailed in Chapter 13. The principal advantage is the ability to produce a dense cathode deposit rather than a powder deposit. The process has largely been examined for the treatment of secondary lead materials, which are converted either into lead carbonate or PbO from mixed sulfate-oxide residues, and are then leached in fluosiUcic acid. The US Bureau of Mines developed an approach along these lines as an extension of the Betts electrorefining process to electrowinning (Cole, Lee and Paulson, 1981). This approach was also developed and applied on a commercial scale by RSR Corporation in the USA (Prengaman and McDonald, 1990). 

Numerous processes have been developed for combined desulphurisation and denitrification of the flue gases. Most processes are still at the laboratory scale and there are very few plants operating at full commercial scale. Most combined processes are considered to be complex and expensive. That opinion may change, however, as more stringent standards are introduced for both sulphur and nitrogen oxide emissions together with restrictions on residue disposal. Many combined processes produce a refined by-product, (eg sulphur, sulphuric acid). 

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