In industry, many separation processes involve the separation of multicomponent mixtures using distillation. There are many distillation configurations that can carry out the same overall separation process. These configurations use an equal number of distillation columns, but they differ significantly in energy consumption. Therefore a major challenge for a practitioner is the identification o...

Zeolites of MFI-type belong to the most important zeolite structures in catalysis and are used in many shape-selective processes in petroleum refining industry, in particular for the kinetic separation of alkane isomers. Practically all important applications involve mixtures. However, due to the experimental difficulty, the number of experimental studies of mixture adsorption and diffusion is ...

Currently, two commercial plants are operating to produce ~20% of Canada's petroleum requirements from the Athabasca oil sands deposit in Alberta. The hot water extraction process is used to extract the bitumen from this resource. During processing, mechanical dispersion forces cause mobilization of ultra-fine clays into the process water (Kotlyar et al., 1992a, 1993). The resulting slurry is t...

Commercially used industrial baking enamels consist of alkyd or polyester resin with melamine formaldehyde. These resins are mainly derived from fossil resources. Considering growing environmental legislation regarding use of petroleum based raw materials, utilization of renewable resources to synthesize various chemistries can be the only obvious option as far as academia and industries are co...

Biodiesel, fatty acid methyl esters derived from vegetable oils, is a well-established alternative to petroleum diesel. We have developed a rapid H diffusion-ordered nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (DOSY NMR)method to resolve mixtures of mono-, di-, and triacyglycerols alongwith their methyl esters. Because of the differences in diffusion coefficients between the starting materials (tri...

In this study, transesterification of refined, bleached and deodorized (RBD) palm olein was carried out with methanol, ethanol and their mixtures at various methanol/ethanol ratios, while maintaining the molar ratio of oil to alcohol at 1:6. Potassium hydroxide was used as the catalyst. The process variables were temperature, methanol/ethanol molar ratio and amount of catalyst. The optimum biod...

Caking formation in fertilizer products during handling and storage is a frequently encountered problem. Caked fertilizers become together as lumps, lose their free- flowing properties, create inefficient applications. Several parameters such relative humidity temperature of the environment, pressure by pile height, physicochemical properties product moisture content, presence fines chemical co...

We present results from laboratory investigations on the fluorescence of Dense NonAqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPL) and fluorophore mixtures, characterized using a Luminescence Spectrometer. Fluorophores such as aromatic compounds (e.g. benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, as well as other constituents of petroleum fuels, oils, lubricants and greases) are present as co-contaminants in many D...

A sensitive and precise method for the determination of trace amounts of total sulfur in organic mixtures is described. With this method bonded sulfur is reacted with activated Raney nickel and is reduced to nickel sulfide at 70 °C. Then, the residue is separated on a filter paper and pyrolysed by induction furnace technique for generation of SO2 which is then detected by a non-dispersive gas d...

Biosurfactants or surface-active compounds are produced by microoaganisms. These molecules reduce surface tension both aqueous solutions and hydrocarbon mixtures. In this study, isolation and identification of biosurfactant producing bacteria were assessed. The potential application of these bacteria in petroleum industry was investigated. Samples (crude oil) were collected from oil wells and 4...