The biofuel mix in transport in the UK must be increased from currently exploited 3.33% to the EU target mix of 10% by 2020. Under the face of this huge challenge, the most viable way forward is to process infrastructure-compatible intermediate, such as bio-oil from fast pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass, into biofuels. New facilities may integrate multiple distributed pyrolysis units produc...

Through a variety of material screening experiments, Al was selected as the added metal and constituted a multiple micro-electrolysis system of Fe/C/Al. The metal proportion of alloy-structured filler was also analyzed with the best Fe/C/Al ratio of 3:1:1. The regular Fe/C/Al multiple micro-electrolysis fillers were prepared using a high-temperature anaerobic roasting method. The optimum condit...

Crude oil distillation (atmospheric distillation column with furnace) consumes about 50% of the energy required in oil refinery plant. To achieve further reduction of the energy required in oil refinery plants, it is required to investigate the crude oil distillation and to retrofit it for energy saving process. Recently, authors developed an innovative process design technology, self-heat recu...

.................................................................................................................................. vi CHAPTER 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1 References ....................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 2. COMPA...

Reasons for Blending Crude Oils at a Refinery Oil refineries, and especially their on-process units that process the primary crude feed stocks, are not uniform in either design or operation. The refinery process units and the combination of units built and in service at a given refinery location are part of a plan to accommodate a certain slate of crudes based on their properties. These decisio...

A model predictive control (MPC) strategy is developed to determine the optimal solution of the short-term refinery production planning problem. The main objective of the proposed algorithm is to maximize the total profit and to minimize the costs regarding the refinery process over a planning horizon. The refinery planning problem is solved in discrete time over a pre-determined prediction hor...

1 Data 1.1 U.S. Refineries 1.1.1 Sources of data I match and compile three data sets on characteristics and imports of U.S. refineries collected by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA): (i) capacity of distillation unit and upgrading units (parts 6-7 of form EIA-820: annual refinery report); (ii) imports of crude oil, (form EIA-814: monthly imports report) (iii) domestic purchases o...

Scheduling of crude oil operations is an important and complex routine task in a refinery. It involves crude oil unloading, tank allocation, storage and blending of crudes, and CDU charging. Optimal crude oil scheduling can increase profits by exploiting cheaper but poor quality crudes, minimizing crude changeovers, avoiding ship demurrage, and managing crude inventory optimally. In our previou...

The current study evaluates the performance of a pilot scale fed batch reactor (FBR), fo llowed by coagulation and sand filtration, for the treatment of an oil refinery wastewater. The total reductions in COD, BOD, oil contents and phenol were 95.11%, 94.30%, 99.47% and 100%, respectively, with FBR followed by coagulation and sand filtration. This FBR-coagulation-sand filtration treatment syste...

OBJECTIVE Occupational exposure typical of an oil refinery may alter liver function among the workers. Thus, the objective of the study was to identify risk factors for liver enzyme abnormalities among oil refinery workers. METHODS The workers at an oil refinery in Northeastern Brazil underwent routine annual medical examination from 1982 to 1998. This case-control study investigated all the ...