Chemical Engineering

Statement of the Problem: Petroleum refinery will remain the main source of transportation fuels for a foreseeable future. There is, however, need to continuously improve the quality of these fuels to make them cleaner and greener to reduce harmful emissions. However, a limit has been reached for quality improvements in conventional refinery and there is a need to consider alternative and synergistic approaches to improve quality and set higher standards. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: The proposed approach aims to improve the quality of main liquid fuels namely diesel and gasoline by integrating Fischer Tropsch (FT) synthesis based on syngas derived from natural gas reforming with a conventional refinery. FT synthesis can produce high quality clean burning diesel and gasoline fuels. In particular, the diesel fuel from the FT synthesis process is essentially free of particulate emissions precursors (i.e. polynuclear aromatics) and sulfur content is below 0.5 ppm. Similarly, gasoline from FT refinery is very low in sulfur and high in octane. Continuous efforts to increase the content of drop-in biodiesel and bioethanol will increase the renewable content of these fuels and further improve their quality. Conclusion & Significance: The proposed integration of conventional petroleum refinery with the natural gas-based production of high-quality clean diesel and gasoline fuels by FT synthesis process has significant potential to mitigate harmful emissions from these fuels. Greening these fuels by drop-in biodiesel and bioethanol will further improve their quality while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.