Fractional Distillation Research Articles

Production of aromatic hydrocarbons by co-cracking of bio-oil and ethanol over Ga2O3/HZSM-5 catalysts

• The activity of Ga 2 O 3 /HZSM-5 was significantly affected by the preparation method. • Weak Brønsted acidity was detrimental to deoxygenation and aromatization reactions. • The catalyst prepared by impregnation showed high activity at a Si/Al ratio of 25. The catalytic cracking of bio-oil is important to produce aromatic hydrocarbons, which can partially replace gasoline or diesel to greatly reduce carbon emissions from transportation. To further promote the formation of aromatic hydrocarbons, this work studied the effects of the preparation method and the acid strength of Ga 2 O 3 /HZSM-5 on catalytic cracking of the bio-oil distilled fraction systematically. The preparation method of Ga 2 O 3 /HZSM-5 had an important effect on its catalytic activity: the Ga 2 O 3 /HZSM-5 prepared by physical mixing showed the low dispersion of active phases and poor pore structure, resulting in its insufficient activity and severe coke deposition; the Ga 2 O 3 /HZSM-5 prepared by precipitation exhibited the higher activity, while many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons unfavorable for the subsequent utilization were in the oil phase; the Ga 2 O 3 /HZSM-5 prepared by impregnation showed the highest activity and 35.5% (mass) selectivity of the oil phase, including 80.3% monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and 12.0% polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The Brønsted acidity of Ga 2 O 3 /HZSM-5 decreased with Si/Al ratio, leading to the decline in reactant conversion, oil phase selectivity and quality. Meanwhile, the polymerization between monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and oxygenates was promoted to produce many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and even coke, causing catalyst deactivation.

Multi-task learning for energy consumption forecasting of methyl chlorosilanes fractional distillation process

The fractional distillation process of methyl chlorosilanes composed of multiple distillation units plays a vital role in the silicones industry. It consumes energy intensively because of the high demand for separating capacity. Therefore, it is crucial to establish the energy consumption models for better forecasting. A multi-task learning approach is presented in this paper to improve the model accuracy for each unit while saving the modeling cost. Firstly, the simplified white-box model of each distillation unit is established according to the heat and material balance. Then, the multi-task least square support vector machine algorithm is proposed to identify the model parameters by employing the similarity between multiple distillation units. Finally, the actual industrial data is used in the simulation section to verify the validity, practicability, and advantages of the multi-task models over single-task ones. It shows that the proposed models can enhance the understanding of the distillation process significantly and forecast the energy consumption more accurately than the existing single-task models.

Synthesis of Patchouli Esters from Patchouli Oil in the Presence of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalyst

Patchouli alcohol was isolated from patchouli oil by fractional distillation under reduced pressure. Patchouli esters were then prepared from isolated patchouli alcohol via esterification reaction in the presence of homogeneous (concentrated hydrochloric acid) and heterogeneous (acid-activated bentonite) catalysts. Fractional distillation under reduced pressure was carried out by heating patchouli oil under a pressure until 0 mmHg. Esterification reaction was carried out by heating patchouli alcohol with propionic acid in the presence of an acid catalyst at 100-110 for 3 h The products were characterized using FTIR and GCMS spectrometers. The esterification reaction with HCl 37% and bentonite catalysts produced patchouli propionate in 26% and 21% yields, respectively.

Antidiarrheal Effect of 80% Methanol Extract and Fractions of the Leaves of Ocimum lamiifolium in Swiss Albino Mice.

Introduction Worldwide, in children of under five years of age, diarrhea is responsible for more than 760,000 annual deaths. It is treated with both modern drugs and traditional medicinal plants, including O. lamiifolium. But the use of this plant as an antidiarrheal agent is not scientifically validated. Therefore, this study was aimed to evaluate antidiarrheal efficacy of the plant. Method The leaf powder was macerated by 80% methanol and then fractionated using n-hexane, n-butanol, and distilled water. Antidiarrheal activity was evaluated through different models (castor oil-induced diarrhea, enteropooling, and motility) using onset, number of wet feces, fluid content, weight and volume of intestinal content, and motility as test parameters by administering treatment doses to groups of mice. Group I received 10 mL/kg of the dissolving vehicle, Group II received either loperamide or atropine, and Groups III-V received extract doses of 100, 200, and 400 mg/kg, respectively. One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data, followed by Tukey's post-hoc test. Results The crude extract exhibited a significant effect on the fluid content of feces at all tested doses. Additionally, the n-butanol and distilled water fractions revealed significant effects on onset of diarrhea at 400 mg/kg (p < 0.05), while the n-hexane fraction showed significant effects on number of wet feces, onset, and fluid content of feces at all tried doses. The crude extract and all the fractions (at 200 and 400 mg/kg) decreased the weight and volume of intestinal content significantly. Similarly, both the crude extract and distilled water fraction at 400 mg/kg as well as n-butanol and n-hexane fractions at 200 and 400 mg/kg showed meaningful differences on peristaltic index as compared to the negative control. Conclusion The results revealed that the leaf extract of O. lamiifolium has an antidiarrheal activity, which supports the traditional medical practice.

Maximizing olefin production via steam cracking of distilled pyrolysis oils from difficult-to-recycle municipal plastic waste and marine litter

Plastic waste is steadily polluting oceans and environments. Even if collected, most waste is still predominantly incinerated for energy recovery at the cost of CO2. Chemical recycling can contribute to the transition towards a circular economy with pyrolysis combined with steam cracking being the favored recycling option for the time being. However, today, the high variety and contamination of real waste remains the biggest challenge. This is especially relevant for waste fractions which are difficult or even impossible to recycle mechanically such as highly mixed municipal plastic waste or marine litter. In this work, we studied the detailed composition and the steam cracking performance of distilled pyrolysis oil fractions in the naphtha-range of two highly relevant waste fractions: mixed municipal plastic waste (MPW) considered unsuitable for mechanical recycling and marine litter (ML) collected from the sea bottom. Advanced analytical techniques including comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC) coupled with various detectors and inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) were applied to characterize the feedstocks and to understand how their properties affect the steam cracking performance. Both waste-derived naphtha fractions were rich in olefins and aromatics (~70% in MPW naphtha and ~51% in ML naphtha) next to traces of nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine and metals. ICP-MS analyses showed that sodium, potassium, silicon and iron were the most crucial metals that should be removed in further upgrading steps. Steam cracking of the waste-derived naphtha fractions resulted in lower light olefin yields compared to fossil naphtha used as benchmark, due to secondary reactions of aromatics and olefins. Coke formation of ML naphtha was slightly increased compared to fossil naphtha (+ ~50%), while that of MPW naphtha was more than ~180% higher. It was concluded that mild upgrading of the waste-derived naphtha fractions or dilution with fossil feedstocks is sufficient to provide feedstocks suitable for industrial steam cracking.

Metal-organic framework on porous TiO2 thin film-coated alumina beads for fractional distillation of plant essential oils.

Fractionation of essential oils is technically challenging due to enormous scaffold diversities and structural complexities as well as difficulties in the implementation of the fractionation in the gas phase. Packing beads with multi-dimensional hierarchical nanostructures have been developed herein to pack fractional columns for atmospheric distillations. Activated alumina beads were coated with a porous TiO2 thin film. Growth of Cu-BTC (benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate) crystals in resultant porous surfaces leads to the generation of new nanopores and increased metal centers for differential coordination with diverse components of essential oils. The TiO2 thin film is not only an integral part of the composites but also induces the oriented growth of Cu-BTC metal organic framework (MOF) crystals through coordinative interactions. These Al2O3@TiO2@Cu-BTC MOF beads show very strong absorptive capability for major components of essential oils, except for a single cyclic ether eucalyptol with steric hindrances. The eucalyptol was fractionated by using the column packed with those modified alumina beads from raw materials of Artemisia argyi, and Rosmarinus officinalis with high purities up to 96% and 93%, respectively.

Bioconversion of Industrial Cassava Solid Waste (Onggok) to Bioethanol Using a Saccharification and Fermentation process

Cassava solid waste (Onggok) is a by-product of the starch industry containing a lot of fiber, especially cellulose and hemicellulose. It has the potential to be converted to bioethanol. This work aimed to evaluate the effect of feedstocks ratio for the optimal bioethanol production via enzymatic and acidic hydrolysis process in a batch fermentation process. The effect of alpha-amylase and glucoamylase activities was studied. The sulfuric acid concentrations in the hydrolysis process in converting cassava into reducing sugar were also investigated. The reducing sugar was then fermented to produce ethanol. Enzymatic and chemical hydrolysis was carried out with the ratio of onggok(g)/water(L), 50/1, 75/1, and 100/1 (w/v). In the enzymatic hydrolysis, 22.5, 45, and 67.5 KNU (Kilo Novo alpha-amylase Unit) for liquefaction; and 65, 130, and 195 GAU (Glucoamylase Unit) for saccharification, respectively of enzymes were applied. The liquefaction was carried out at 90-100⁰C for 2 hours. The saccharification was executed at 65 ⁰C for 4 hours. Meanwhile, the acidic hydrolysis operating condition was at 90-100 ⁰C for 3 hours. The fermentation was performed at pH 4.5 for 3 days. Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) analysis was conducted to evaluate the hydrolysis process. The highest ethanol was yielded in the fermentation at 8.89% with the ratio of onggok to water 100:1, 67.5 KNU of alpha-amylase, and 195 GAU of glucoamylase. Ethanol was further purified utilizing fractional distillation. The final ethanol concentration was at 93-94%.

THE POTENTIAL OF Azadirachta indica (NEEM TREE) LEAVES FOR BIOETHANOL PRODUCTION USING Zymomanas mobilis AS FERMENTING ORGANISMS

Bioethanol is a renewable energy produced from lignocellulosic biomass mainly by the fermentation process. It is used as an alternative to fossil fuel which doesn’t contribute to global warming. This research work was carried out to determining the potential of Neem tree leaves for bioethanol production. The process used in this study include pretreatment, hydrolysis fermentation and distillation. Hot water and Acid methods were used for the pretreatment. The hydrolysis of the substrate was carried out using Aspergillus niger for five days. Benedict test method was used to determine the reducing sugar concentration of the hydrolysate. The highest yield of 1500-2000 (mg/dl) was obtained equally for both the pre-treatment method. After hydrolysis, fermentation process was carried out for seven days using Zymomonas mobilis to ferment the hydrolysate. The fermented broth was separate using fractional distillation. Acid potassium dichromate was used to determine the concentration of the bioethanol produced. The results obtained shows that liquid hot water pretreatment produced the highest yield of 0.294±0.882 (mg/L) whereas alkaline method produced 0.282±.882 (mg/L) yield. Gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy analysis was also carried out to determine the presence of volatile compounds in the bioethanol produced. The highest volatile compound was Ethanol with 33.12% where Butyl Glycol was found to be least volatile compound with 6.22%. This result shows that Neem tree leaves is a good biomass for bioethanol production and pretreatment using Hot water method produced more bioethanol than Alkaline method of pretreatment.

Hydro-refining of coal-petroleum co-processing oil for potential clean jet fuels

A coal-petroleum co-processing oil (CPCO) and its distillation fraction at 180 °C (DF180) were subjected to catalytic hydro-desulfurization and hydrogenation with batch autoclave and fixed bed reactor respectively to produce potential jet fuels with low sulfur and high cyclanes content. The results show that sulfur content of CPCO reaches up to 2282 mg/L. After fractionation through distillation, the sulfur content in DF180 is reduced to 283.6 mg/L. When CPCO was hydrogenated at 280 °C with NiMoS/γ-Al2O3 catalyst, the content of sulfur-containing compounds (SCs) reduces and that of cyclanes increases. However, with higher hydrogenation temperatures or prolonged residence times, SCs content increased through their secondary reactions, i.e., the combination of S or HS with the fragments derived from hydro-cracking of CPCO. Meanwhile, the cyclanes content decreased. Similar phenomena were observed during hydrogenation of DF180 in autoclave. On the other hand, after 10 h continuous hydrogenation with NiMoS/γ-Al2O3, the content of sulfur was reduced to 9.1 mg/L and that of cyclanes increased to 29.9%, thus meeting the requirements for clean jet fuels. From these perspectives, this work provides an alternative means for producing clean jet fuels with CPCO liquids.

Produce individual medium chain carboxylic acids (MCCA) from swine manure: Performance evaluation and economic analysis

Environmental issues caused by untreated animal manure require the development of resource recovery from waste through a circular economy approach. Producing medium chain carboxylic acids (MCCA) with higher value than biogas from manure has become promising. The objective of this study was to develop an effective individual MCCA produce process utilizing manure. In this study, animal manure was firstly anaerobic fermentation into short chain fatty acids (SCFA), then acidified manure and ethanol were fed into the chain elongation reactor with gradually increasing the organic loading rate (OLR) from 7.0 to 18.5 gCOD/L/d, and the mixed MCCA was separated individually via a fractional distillation process. The SCFA fermentation occurred mainly at the first 10 days, and the optimum concentrations of SCFA for treatments at 2 %VS, 4 %VS and 6 %VS were 6.58, 10.40 and 14.10 g/L, respectively. For the chain elongation reactor, the maximum concentrations of n-caproate and n-caprylate were 10.25 and 0.63 g/L, respectively, which were comparable with that obtained from other complex wastes. Over 90% MCCA can be recovered from the fermentation broth via the optimized extractant of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and the fractional distillation system. Preliminary economic analysis shows that this MCCA production process presented a higher economic benefit (9.25 $/m3 manure) than traditional biogas production (2.65 $/m3 manure), making MCCA production from swine manure economically competitive. This work provides a new route for manure resource recovery besides the biogas process.

Hydroconversion Of Heavy Distillate Into Lube Base Stock Using Bi-Functional Catalysts

Hydroconversion process replaces the furfural stage and dewaxing part of conventional processs of lube base stock production. To study the ability of this hydroconversion process to weed low viscosity index component out of heavy distillate fraction to produce high viscosity index lube base stock, an experiment has been carried out on the hydroconversion of three feedstock types, I,e,: non-paraffinic vacuum distillate (NPVD), paraffinic vacuum distillate (PVD) and paraffin-wax (WAX), using three bifunctional catalysts having low, medium abd high acidities. The experiment was done at the following operating conditions: temperature from 380° to 420°C, pressure: 100 kg/cm² and H₂/HC ratio: 1000 L/L using a Catatest Unit operated in continuous system.The experimental data shows that at 50% by wt. feedstock conversion, the yields and viscosity index of lube base stock product are 20.7% by wt. and 118; 25.5% by wt. and 136; and 29.5% by wt. and 164 for NPVD, PVD and high acidity bifunctional catalysts, respectively. By conventional process, PVD feedstock produces 10-15% by wt. lube base stock with viscosity index lube 90 to 100.The high viscosity index of lube base stock product, obtained by hydroconversion process, suggest that a part of condensed aromatics is converted into naphthenes, which are then selectivity hydrocracked into single alkyl aromatics by both the metal site and acid site of the bifunctional catalysts. With medium and high acidity bifunctional catalysts, isomerization and cyclization of wax feedstock into isoparaffins and single ring alkyl-naphthene ring of vacuum distillate feedstock into single ring alkyl-aromatic is quite dominant with medium acidity catalyst.

Optimization of fractional distillation column in crude oil refinery using artificial neural network

The paper outlines the methods, which improve the controlling process of separating methanol from water in the distillation column to produce crude oil products. Nowadays, many industries use PID controllers to control process variables like temperature, flow, pressure, level, which helps maintain good performances. However, PID controllers can have slightly bad performances in complicate control systems, such as in Multiple Input and Multiple Output (MIMO) systems; due to this, optimization methods of improving PID are considered. А tremendous amount of work has been done rеfіnіng, study in gаnd imprоvіng the PID controlling techniquesand methods. However, PID still faces challenges in a variety of common control problems. This article represents Nеural Nеtwork Algоritm bаsеd PID cоntrollеr, whіchіsusеdtоcоntrоlthе separating process of methanol from water in the distillation column, due to Nеuralnеtwork’s good generalization results. The Wood and Berry mathematical Model was chosen as the main control object.

Antimicrobial Activity of Slow Pyrolysis Distillates from Pine Wood Biomass against Three Pathogens

The aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of wood distillates obtained from Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) sawdust in order to explore new alternatives for the utilization of wood industry by-products. The distillates were produced by slow pyrolysis thermal conversion in three process phases with increasing temperatures, namely drying, torrefaction and pyrolysis, and three cooling units with different temperatures to condensate the distillates. This yielded nine different liquid fractions. The food-related pathogens, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Candida albicans, were evaluated for their susceptibility to the distillate fractions using an agar diffusion test. The antimicrobial activity was estimated by measuring the formed inhibition zones after the incubation period. In addition, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and microbicidic concentration were assayed for a selected fraction (T2) from the torrefaction phase with Bio-screen C. The results indicated that the distillates from the torrefaction and pyrolysis phases had antimicrobial activity against the tested microbes. The MIC value of the T2 fraction for all tested microbes was 0.83% (v/v). Furthermore, the T2 fraction was microbicidic for Salmonella and Listeria strains in 0.83% (v/v) solution and Candida strain in 1.67% (v/v) solution. In conclusion, Scots pine wood distillates obtained from slow pyrolysis have the potential to be developed as antimicrobial agents against pathogenic microbes. Next, research is needed to investigate the chemical composition of the distillates and to assess their safe use.

PRODUCTION OF GASOLINE COMPONENTS IN ASEAN REFINERIES AND EFFECTS OF THE STRICTER FUEL QUALITY REQUIREMENT

Intensive implementation of the blue sky program in many countries imposed the use of reformulated gasoline with a very sophisticated specification. Motor gasoline is essentially a complex mixture of hydrocarbons distilled between 40 and 220 C, which consist of distillate fraction of crude oils and the conversion products of crude oil fractions. Small amounts of additives are also used to enhance various aspects of the performance of gasoline. In ASEAN refineries, over 740 MBPSD of feed- stock is processed which produce about 512 MBPSD of gasoline components. About 96 percent of the amount is processed in 39 units of the heterogeneous catalytic processes: i.e. cracking. reforming and isomerization, and the other 4 percent in 4 units of homogeneous catalytic processes: L.e. alkylation and polymerization. Volatility, octane number, hydroegtys4 com: position and impurity content are the most determinant criteria of the gasoline. In most spark-ignition internal combustion engines, the fuel is metered in liquid form through the carburettor or fuel injector, and is mixed with air and partially vaporized before entering the cylinders of the engine. Consequently. volatility, is and extremely important characteristic with respect to starting, driveability, vapor lock, dilution of engine oil fuel economy, and carburettor icing. To increase the octane level of gasoline an anti knock agent such as tetraethyl lead (TEL) or tetramethyl lead (TML) can also be used. Pres- sures to reduce atmospheric pollution are tending towards the reduction or elimination of lead from gasoline. Lead itself is known to be a poison and its presence in the exhaust gas is undesirable. Leudacts as a catalyst poison of catalytic converter installed to reduce carbon monaxide and hydrocarbon emission. Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) is one of the alternative to replace lead alkyls, and has been used as antiknock. Unleaded gasoline (ULG) has been introduced since 1990 in ASEAN Countries: The actual penetration of ULG utilization in the first half of 1998 are as follows : Brunei Darussalam 48.9 , Indonesia 0.6 %. Malaysia 80 %, Philippines 17.7 %, Singapore 81 %. and Thailand 100%. The passage of the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990 in the USA has forced American refiners to install new facilities to comply with stricter specifications for fuels such as gasoline and diesel oil. Various terms in the models address quality of the gasoline blended, sulfur content, and total aromatics and olefins contents, RVP, the Tof distillation range, sulfur content, and oxygenated content. Specifications for the reformulated gasoline and the ASEAN commecial gasoline are presented. Driveability index (DI) has been standardized by ASTM D-4814-98a and in the near future this DI could be recommended in the specification for the reformulated gasoline. Reformu- lated gasoline can be blended from the high quality gasoline components. Volatitity (RVP. T T T and driveability index), octane number (RON, MON and octane distribution), and hydrocarbon compositions of the gasoline components, as well as the refinery configuration to improve the quality of the gasoline components, and the compositions of these improved gasoline components of reformulated gasoline production are briefly discussed in this paper.

That's oil!...The Apothecary and the Blood of the Earth

Petroleum was of little interest to analytical chemistry scholars until the mid-19th century, as they considered it unhelpful to experiment with an explosive chemical compound with niche utility value. The discovery of oil's potential is credited to Polish pharmacists Ignacy Łukasiewicz and Jan Zeh, who performed the chemical separation of oil in a pharmacy laboratory using the scientific method of fractional distillation. The isolation of the kerosene fraction from oil was exploited by Ignacy Łukasiewicz, who created an innovative design for a lamp. Lighting with cheap kerosene became the idea of the explorer, who, with the help of Polish investors, organised the first oil mine and refinery in 1854, laying the foundation for the oil mining and petrochemical industry. Łukasiewicz's lamp, entering mass use, initiated global demand for oil. The accounts of Polish and Austrian historians on the pioneering role of Łukasiewicz in this regard support the arguments from the field of physics and analytical chemistry developed by Wojciech Roeske, who demystifies the amateurish, intuitive methods of oil purification of Łukasiewicz's predecessors, documents the merits of the Pole as a pioneer – an ancestor of the oil industry derived from the tradition of Polish pharmacy. Keywords: Ignacy Łukasiewicz, kerosene lamp, kerosene, fractional distillation, oil mining, petrochemicals.

Black gold – the history of the energy sector

The history of oil production, processing and use is centuries old. Of course, the kerosene lamp, fractional distillation yielding kerosene of unprecedented purity, industrial extraction of oil, including from beneath the seabed, purification, and pipeline transmission of natural gas, led to the explosion (sic!) of the oil industry, transportation energy, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and many other fields. Keywords: Crude oil, kerosene, bitumen, mine, natural gas, Ignacy Łukasiewicz

PRODUCTION OF CLEAN DIESEL OILS

Cars and fuels have been developed simultaneously and nowadays cars demand a very sophisticated fuel indeed. Environmental restriction and efforts to minimize the pollution problem by exhaust gases are causing de- sign changes in cars that in turn are having some effects on fuel quality. The development of processes for making high cetane number gas oil blending components and the widespread use of additives to enhance fuel properties have all contributed to the highly developed motor fuel used today". Gas oil components produced in the refineries generally consist of predominantly straight-run gas oil (SRGO) obtained from the fractional distillation of crude oils. There are two types of straightrun gas oil ie a sulfur rich (0.9-1.9 wt.%) aromatic source, and a low- sulfur (0.2 wt.%) paraffinic crude source121, To satisfy the growing demand for diesel fuel, increased use of cracked stocks is anticipated. The primary requirement in diesel oil properties is that it should burn smoothly, without exploding, under the condition existing in the combustion chamber, so that maximum amount of useful energy is liberated. The ignition quality of a diesel oil is measured by its cetane number, which depends on its hydrocarbon composition. Different refineries produce diesel oil of different compositions, depending on the blending components available. Hydrocarbon compositions of the gas oil components show marked variation in their precombustion and ignition characteristics and so differ in their combustion behavior in an engine. Such a selective hydrocracking process has the following reaction: desulfurization, denitrogenation, deoxygenation, saturation and isomerization which could improve the flowing properties of gas oil components: sulfur, nitrogen, polycyclic aromatics and total aromatics, product stability, colour, neutralization number and distillation temperature (T50 and T90). The properties of the straight-run and cracked gas oil components, and improving their quality by a hydrotreating process to meet the clean diesel oil specification and production of gas oil components in Indonesia's refineries are described. A brief deliberation is offered on the impact of the changing diesel oil quality requirement, particularly due to the environmental restriction, on the refinery configuration.

INFLUENCE OF HYDROCARBON COMPOSITION OF NAPHTHA FEED ON THE YIELD AND OCTANE NUMBER OF REFORMATE

The rapidly increasing demand for high octane num- ber gasoline and aromatic hydrocarbon as a petrochemical feedstock has promoted refiners to seek methods of improving yields of these valuable products. The purpose of catalytic reforming is to convert a low-octane distillate fraction boiling within the gasoline range into high-octane blending stock and low aromatic hydrocarbons. The increase in the octane number of low-octane naphtha reformer feed can therefore be regardel as the transformation of naphthenes and paraffins into aromatics; resulting in the highest octane improvement. Paraffin and C,ring naphthene aromatization are guided by the metal and acid sites of bifunctional reforming catalyst. In order to obtain more information about the influence of hydrocarbon composition of naphtha reformer feed on the yield and research octane number of reformate, an experiment has been carried out to study the conversion of pure hydrocarbon (ie cyclohexane, methylcyclopentane and n.hexane); and naphthenes, and peraffins of three types of naphtha feeds with various hydrocarbon compositions using bifunctional reforming catalyst. The operating conditions: temperatures: 400 to 500 C, pressure: 10 to 30 bars and H/HC ratio = 8 mole/mole. A Catatest Unit operated in a continuous system was used in this experiment. Gas and liquid product samplers taken from gas and liquid samplers, respectively, were analyzed for their hydrocarbon using a Gas Liquid Chromatography.

Microalgae‐Derived Green Diesel

AbstractMicroorganisms are able to biosynthesize hydrocarbons (HCs), thus, they could become a new matrix for fuels and chemicals. In this work, Tetradesmus obliquus cultivated for 15 days in 12‐m3 photobioreactors produced dry biomass for hot oil extraction by rotary evaporation. Pure hexane and a mixture of hexane and ethanol solvents produced crude oil, followed by fractional distillation to yield non‐esterifiables. Gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry characterized the products obtained with hexane extraction as HCs from C11 to C22, and with hexane + ethanol from C13 to C23, predominantly alkanes that led to a high cetane number. The green diesel lower heating value was nearly the same as that of low sulfur fossil diesel, however, economic and logistic aspects need to be addressed aiming at fossil diesel replacement.

A Study on Pyrolysis of Pretreated Automotive Shredder Residue—Thermochemical Calculations and Experimental Work

The automotive shredder residue (ASR) is generated as an inevitable waste after the shredding process of end-of-life vehicles. Typically, the ASR ends up in a landfill in the absence of any existing processing options. The ASR comprises rubber, wood, plastics, textile, metals, and other materials, such as paint and glass (10%), which can be recycled and reused. Given these attributes, the ASR is a potential feedstock for energy production and metal recovery. In this study, ASR was first pretreated because untreated ASR (as received) is fluffy and heterogeneous and, therefore, is difficult to feed into a reactor. Subsequently, the pyrolysis process was conducted with this pretreated ASR for energy recovery. From the thermochemical calculations, an optimized temperature of 500°C was chosen for pyrolysis of the pretreated ASR to ensure that metals would not be further oxidized and polymers could be separated from the metals in the form of volatile gases, oil, and char. Bench-scale pyrolysis tests were conducted on an integrated continuous stirred tank reactor–distillation column pyrolysis system. The product gas composition had hydrogen and methane content of 30% and 26% (v/v), respectively, contributing to the heating value of the gas obtained. The pyrolysis oil was further distilled using fractional distillation apparatus for gasoline and diesel-grade products. The physicochemical characterization of the pretreated ASR pyrolysis oil and its distillates was also carried out. The thermochemical equilibrium predictions showed a similar trend with the experimental pyrolysis results. In addition, the residual char analysis indicated the presence of a significant amount of metals—silicon, titanium, aluminum, and iron. Thus, this work generated information on processing pretreated ASR for the production of fuel and insights on metal recovery that can be recovered from the residual pyrolysis char.