Petrochemicals

Oil sands operations in Alberta are poised to experience significant growth over the next number of years. Production of 1.31 million bbl/day of synthetic crude oil and bitumen blends from oil sands in 2008 is projected to increase to over 3 million bbl/day by 2018. This guarantees a large output...

Refineries and petrochemical plants are leading segment of the entire chemical process industry. It was reported that the value of the product shipments by refineries in U.S. accounted for 9.32% of the entire manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy in 2007. On the other hand, air emissions from...

The acid catalyst promotes esterification by reacting the carboxylic group of the FFA with methanol to form methylesters and water. In this reaction mixture, the sulfuric acid is more miscible in the water product phase than the methanol phase leading to a pronounced water inhibition effect that...

The energy efficiency of an alkaline battery system with forced convective flow between the electrodes has been investigated. Rechargeable alkaline batteries, which depend on the reaction between zinc and manganese dioxide (Zn/MnO 2 ), have been widely used because of their excellent properties...

The University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research is investigating oxygen carriers (OC) for chemical looping combustion (CLC) with the goal of developing a pressurized chemical looping combustion/gasification process for generating electricity from coal. An important issue in the...

Due to the complex morphology and small length scales of many fuel cell materials, experimental quantification of the key properties of these materials can be expensive and quite difficult to conduct, if not impossible. As a result, modeling efforts become an imperative approach to evaluate the...

Li ion batteries capable of delivering a high current without sacrificing voltage or energy density are highly desirable, since they can be recharged faster and provide longer operation time when used in devices that demand high power. In the current generation of batteries using graphite as the...

A predictive mechanical integrity (MI) program is based on the following: * Damage mechanisms that affect process equipment. * Rate at which degradation progresses. * Ability of the inspection group to identify and correct equipment damage before equipment failure. Operational temperature, pressure...

Process Automation ideas and technologies have been used sporadically for decades. However, in US refineries, automation technologies are still relatively rare. Critics of the technology will often point to complexity, high upkeep, and difficulty in changing the status quo as stumbling blocks to...

Refinery crude units often process variety of feedstocks. If properties of the feed entering the crude unit are not precisely known, it is difficult to predict how changes in the tower operating conditions will affect properties of the products. Similarly, if on-line analyzers are not available, it...