While ever-growing bio-ethanol production poses considerable challenges to the bioenergy supply chain, the risk of refinery operation disruptions further compromises the efficiency and reliability of the energy supply system. This paper applies discrete and continuous reliable facility location models to the design of reliable bio-ethanol supply chains so that the system can hedge against poten...

BACKGROUND An outbreak of serogroup C meningococcal disease (MD) that involved employees from an oil refinery occurred in Paulínia, from March to June 2010, and spread to the community of Cosmópolis, both situated in São Paulo State, Brazil. The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiological and laboratory aspects, and the control measures that were implemented. METHODS Descriptive and...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate the relationship between exposure of Korean workers to petrochemicals in the refinery/petrochemical industry and lymphohematopoietic cancers. METHODS The cohort consisted of 8,866 male workers who had worked from the 1960s to 2007 at one refinery and six petrochemical companies located in a refinery/petrochemical com...

Hydrogen demand in refineries is increasing vigorously due to the stringent transportation fuel specifications, furthermore the interest in the so-called hydrogen economy developed in the recent years put the hydrogen as energy carrier in the centre of a growing interest. More than 95% of the hydrogen for refinery use is nowadays produced via hydrocarbon steam reforming, where Foster Wheeler pl...

This paper first outlines the benefits of Medium Voltage Variable Frequency Drives (MV-VFD) compared to classical drivers or control methods (i.e. steam/gas turbines, hydraulic coupling and Direct-On-Line operation with, for example, valve/damper control). The paper then focuses on typical variable frequency drive applications in the sugar industry and also describes two real cases, namely a MV...

The present research demonstrates the biological treatment of refinery sulfidic spent caustics in a continuously fed system under halo-alkaline conditions (i.e. pH 9.5; Na(+)= 0.8M). Experiments were performed in identical gas-lift bioreactors operated under aerobic conditions (80-90% saturation) at 35°C. Sulfide loading rates up to 27 mmol L(-1)day(-1) were successfully applied at a HRT of 3.5...

An Agilent Simulated Distillation (SimDis) system is described for characterizing petroleum fractions for quality control and monitoring of refinery feedstocks and products. The system uses a 6890N gas chromatograph (GC) equipped with a high temperature programmable temperature vaporizer (HT PTV) inlet designed specifically for simulated distillation analysis. A SimDis software program that cou...

Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is a major refinery process designed to upgrade heavy and less valuable petroleum products to gasoline and lighter products. The feedstock for the FCC process ranges from light gas oils to heavy hydro-treated resids. The complexity of the feedstock, and the associated analytical chemistry and computational obstacles, helped shape early FCC modeling approaches (2.3...

Oil and gas refineries present challenging environments in which to work and operate, especially in places like the Middle East where temperatures can reach 50 C and sand storms which can reduce visibility to a few meters. In addition, there can be gas or steam leaks which present health and safety hazards to the workers. At present, continuous operation of these plants requires that human work...