In the presented research we have tested the application of photo ionization detector of ECOPROBE 5 analyzer to monitoring of low concentrations of petroleum products in water. Petroleum products are organic pollutants that are present in wastewater most frequently, which is caused by their broad applications and frequent incidents. Emergency leakage of petroleum and its products is predominant...

There is more diversity among microorganisms such as bacteria than there is in the range of life from artichokes to zebras. Bacteria have successfully colonized virtually e very environment on earth because they can rapidly adapt to changing conditions, and use a large and varied number of nutrients to generate energy. How e ve r, until relat ively recently, the environments of many petroleum r...

We examined the causes and mortality of poisoning in the province of Mazandaran. In all, 1751 poisoning cases referred to four main hospitals over a three-year period (1997-2000) were included. More poisoning cases were females (55.5%) than males (45.5%) but the proportional mortality for males was greater than for females (65% versus 35%). The greatest proportion of poisonings occurred between...

The international oil companies (IOCs) in Nigeria have expressed concern over the federal government’s intention to change the laws governing the oil and gas industry including the fiscal terms. They claim that the proposed fiscal terms will affect their bottom line and trigger uncertainties in their investments in the upstream sector. Therefore, this research was conducted with the aim of eval...

Real-time viscosity measurement remains a necessity for highly automated industry. The off-line viscosity measuring destroys the real time performance and the precision, and the change of temperature causes a biggish impact to the output. Density is one of the most universal and easily measurable qualitative characteristics of petroleum products. Knowledge of this quantity enables one not only ...

Ten years ago the US Congress authorized the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) with the intent of bolstering energy security. Today the Reserve stands at over 450 million barrels of oil--a large and potentially powerful policy instrument. The questions surrounding the Reserve, however, are many, complex, and largely unresolved. This paper examines these questions, in the process...

The recent decision in Texaco v. Dagher illustrates problems with the contemporary strategy employed by plaintiffs’ attorneys of narrowly framing antitrust claims to assert “per se” illegality without any explanation of what makes the specific conduct anticompetitive. Although this strategy is understandable given the Supreme Court’s hostility towards competition as a public policy goal, the re...

In the petrochemical industry, certain elements are known to impact the performance and value of the final product, while others have detrimental effects on petroleum refining processes, as in the case of elements which can deactivate or poison catalysts. Consequently, there are several ASTM methods on the elemental analysis of oils, lubricants and fuels. Multi-Element Analysis of Petroleum Cru...

Methods for investigating the role of energy in the economy involve aggregating different energy flows. A variety of methods have been proposed, but none has received universal acceptance. This paper shows that the method of aggregation has crucial effects on the results of the analysis. We review the principal assumptions and methods for aggregating energy flows: the basic heat equivalents app...

β-Amylase is used in the production of maltose syrup and preventing retrogradation of rice cake confectionery. However, until now the supply source for β-amylase has been limited to edible plants such as barley, wheat and soybean. Considering the current worldwide food crisis, it is the responsibility of enzyme producers to explore alternative sources for a stable and constant enzyme supply goi...