Petroleum Nanobiotechnology

Modern Applications for a Sustainable Future

Nour Shafik El-Gendy, Hussein Nabil Nassar, James G. Speight

• Publisher: Apple Academic Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781774630051
• eBook ISBN: 9781000368536
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This book, Petroleum Nanobiotechnology: Modern Applications for a Sustainable Future, explores the unique fusion of biotechnology and nanotechnology as applied to the different sectors of the oil and gas industry. It is a concise resource on the most recent and most up-to-date bottom-up fabrication techniques in petroleum nanobiotechnology, covering the advantages of biofabrication over chemical or physical techniques from the point of being more cost-effective, ecofriendly, biocompatibly superior, and highly stable.

The volume covers the important topic of microbial and phytosynthesis of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles. The key applications discussed here include the application of these nanoparticles in different sectors of the oil and gas industry, with special emphasis on antimicrobial applications, reduction of environmental pollutants, and bio-upgrading of petroleum and its fractions. The discussion of each application is augmented with a critical review of the potential for continued development.

The book first provides an overview of petroleum microbiology and nanotechnology and proceeds to consider phytosynthesis of metal nanoparticles, microbial synthesis of metal nanoparticles, biosynthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles, nanobiotechnology and mitigation of microbial-influenced corrosion in petroleum industry, applications of nanobiotechnology in petroleum refining, and how nanobiotechnology can be used for petroleum wastewater treatment.

This book covers the very important principle of nanobiotechnology as applied in the petroleum industry and how it can be used for:

• Oil recovery
• Microbial enhanced oil recovery
• Petroleum refinery, such as, for example, desulfurization, denitrogenation, demetallization, biotransformation, and bio-upgrading
• Bioremediation of oil polluted soil and water
• Mitigation of microbial corrosion and bio-fouling
• Toxicity of nano-materials and its obstacles upon application
• Nanobiotechnology in petroleum industry and the 17 goals of sustainable development

The advantages of the application of nanobiotechnology in the oil industries are enormous and clearly outweigh any negligible cons. The success can have a huge impact on the exploration, production, refining, mitigation of corrosion, waste management, and economics. This informative volume will be valuable for petroleum engineers and petroleum microbiologists, scientists, and researchers concerned with nanotechnology, environmental pollution, petroleum biotechnology, petroleum microbiology, petroleum refining, and the petroleum industry in general.

CHAPTER 1 Petroleum Microbiology and Nanotechnology

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Nanoscience is the analysis of phenomena and material modification at atomic, molecular, and macromolecular scales, in which the properties of chemicals and materials differ significantly from the properties at a larger-than-molecular scale (McNaught and Wilkinson, 1997; Alemán et al., 2007; ASTM E2456). Nanotechnology is further defined as the understanding and regulating matter in dimensions from 1 to 100 nm (1 nm = 1×10^–9 m = 3.2808×10^–9 feet = 3.9370×10^–8 inches). Nanoscience and nanotechnology thus involve the capability of detecting and controlling the actions of individual atoms and molecules (Nouailhat, 2008). Moreover, nanoobjects have (1) structures with new properties that have similar properties to those of a molecule and a solid; (2) specific qualities proving useful in different applications.

Nanotechnology is not an independent branch of science, but a multidisciplinary branch of science that incorporates disciplines such as chemistry, physics, biology (separately as botany and zoology), electrical engineering, biophysics, and material science to study particles with substantially new and enhanced physical, chemical, and biological properties, as well as functional properties (Fakruddin et al., 2012).

Biotechnology, on the other hand, is the wide field of science covering living systems and organisms for the creation or manufacture of products or any technical technology that uses biological systems, living organisms, or their derivatives for the production or alteration of products or processes for the particular use. It often overlaps with (related) areas, such as bioengineering, biomedical engineering, and molecular engineering, depending on the tools and applications. Biotechnology has been in use for millennia in many areas as (1) agriculture, (2) for production, and (3) medicine (Clark and Pazdernik, 2015; Douglas, 2016). In the late 20th century and early 21st century, biotechnology has expanded to include new and diverse science such as genomics, recombinant gene techniques, immunology as well as the development of pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic test methods. Biotechnology, in particular, uses biological processes such as fermentation and harnesses biocatalysts such as enzymes, yeast, and other microbes to become microscopic plants in development, examples are: (1) 80% or more is streamlining the steps in chemical production processes, (2) improving manufacturing process efficiency, (3) reducing the use of and reliance on petrochemicals, (4) the use of biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, (5) a reduction in water use, (6) a reduction in waste generation, and (7) realizing the full potential of traditional biomass use.

It seems reasonable that the two disciplines will combine in the form of collaborative work terms in which each discipline can complement the other (Niemeyer and Mirkin, 2005). In this way, it is evidenced by merging the two fields (nanotechnology and biotechnology) that nanobiotechnology gives a discipline (nanobiotechnology) that has the potential to advance science through an understanding of chemical, physical, and biological processes and phenomena at the molecular level.

Nanobiotechnology, bionanotechnology, and nanobiology are words that refer to nanotechnology and biology intersection (Gazit, 2007). As the topic has only recently emerged, bionanotechnology and nanobiotechnology serve as broad words for different related technologies. This discipline tends to reflect the convergence of biological science into various nanotechnology fields. This computational biology approach enables scientists to visualize and build structures that can be used in biological science. Biologically influenced nanotechnology makes use of biological processes as the basis for uncreated technologies.

In the world of science and technology, chemists have been creating solutions, suspensions, and colloids for hundreds of years but observing the particles or mixtures they formed at the molecular level was difficult, if not impossible. Similarly, in the petroleum refining industry, the catalyst was synthesized to perform at the molecular level but identifying the individual reaction sites—and the ensuing reactions—was not always possible and often left to theoretical supposition. However, with the advances in various technologies, nanotechnology has come into being making it possible to check the output predictions and better understand the processes of chemical interaction.

Nanotechnology has been implemented successfully in many applications, such as nanoelectronics, nanobiomedicine, and nanodevices. But this technology has rarely been applied to the oil and gas industry, especially in upstream exploration and manufacturing. The oil and gas industry is in need to improve oil recovery and exploit unconventional resources. Nevertheless, the cost of exploration and oil production is under enormous pressure, and when the crude oil price is low and depressed it is more difficult to justify such expenditure. This comes along with the depletion of less viscous and high-quality low asphalt, sulfur, and nitrogen content world reserves of crude oil. Thus, there is a great need for new cost-effective, eco-friendly, sustainable, and energy-saving techniques to be applied in the production, refining, and processing of such heavy oil reserves. This chapter presents to the reader an outline of the science concepts on which nanobiotechnology is based and the potential uses of this technology in science and engineering as an introduction to its use in petroleum science and technology.

1.2 PETROLEUM MICROBIOLOGY

Petroleum microbiology is a state-of-the-art technology that recognizes the action of specific microbial species on crude oil. There are various beneficial and detrimental effects of microbes on crude oil. Scientifically, petroleum microbiology is a division of microbiology that applies microorganisms in different sectors of the petroleum industry from exploration, production, storage, handling, transport, refining, fractionations, petrochemical, and other petroleum products, also in the remediation of any petroleum pollution and upgrading of petroleum and/or its fractions. Petroleum microbiology research is multidisciplinary progressing via exploring the influences of microbial activities on crude oil composition and production, in addition to the microbial processes involved in hydrocarbon biodegradation. Thus, it can be applied in bioremediation of oil-polluted environments, microbial enhanced oil recovery, biodesulfurization, biodenitrogenation, and biodemetallization, bioupgrading of heavy crudes and refining residues.

Petroleum is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons and other organic compounds, including other organometallic elements, most notably vanadium and nickel complexes. Petroleum extracted from different reservoirs significantly differs in compositional and physical properties. Those hydrocarbons, long recognized as substrates that sustain microbial growth, are both a target and a result of microbial metabolism. Biodegradation by microorganisms can be helpful in modifying waxy crude oils, but conditions for downhole applications require the use of thermophiles, resistant to organic solvents, with heat-stable enzymes, and reduced oxygen requirements (Speight and El-Gendy, 2017).

Petroleum (also called crude oil) is by nature a combination of gaseous, liquid, and solid hydrocarbon compounds. Petroleum occurs in sedimentary rock deposits worldwide and also includes small quantities of compounds containing nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, as well as trace amounts of metallic constituents (Speight, 2014). On a molecular basis, the major constituents of conventional petroleum are derivatives of hydrocarbons (i.e., hydrogen and carbon compounds), which show great variation in their molecular structure. The simplest hydrocarbons are a large group of molecules in chain form, known as paraffins. This large series stretches from methane, which forms natural gas, to crystalline waxes through liquids refined into gasoline. A ring-shaped series of hydrocarbons, known as naphthenes, originate from volatile liquids, such as naphtha isolated to high molecular weight substances as a fraction of asphalt. Another group of ring-shaped hydrocarbons is known as aromatics; benzene, a common raw material for producing petrochemicals, is the principal compound in this category. At the other side, heavy oil, super heavy oil, and bitumen in tar sand contain fewer amounts of hydrocarbon derivatives than conventional petroleum. The constituents are more complex, higher boiling, and contain higher proportions of heteroatoms (nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur) within the molecular structure of the constituents.

Thus, investigations of the character of petroleum need to be focused on the influence of its character on refining operations and the nature of the products that will be produced. Furthermore, one means by which the character of petroleum has been studied is through its fractional composition. However, the fractional composition of petroleum varies markedly with the method of isolation or separation, thereby leading to potential complications (especially in the case of the heavier feedstock) in the choice of suitable processing schemes for such feedstock. Crude oil can be fractionated into three or four general fractions: (1) the asphaltene fraction, (2) the resin fraction, (3) the aromatics fraction, and (4) the saturates fraction—the name of each fraction is not a true representation of the character of the fraction but more a name that has been applied as a guide to illustrate the means of separation. However, using this convenient nomenclature, interlaboratory investigations can be compared and the principle of predictability can be extended to each fraction to the ease or complexity of chemical transformation of the constituents and the character of the potential products.

In the current context, recent advances in molecular biology have extended the understanding of metabolic processes related to microbial petroleum hydrocarbon transformatio...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1. Petroleum Microbiology and Nanotechnology
• 2. Phytosynthesis of Metal Nanoparticles
• 3. Microbial Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles
• 4. Biosynthesis of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles
• 5. Nanobiotechnology and Mitigation of Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion in Petroleum Industry
• 6. Application of Nanobiotechnology in Petroleum Refining
• 7. Nanobiotechnology and Petroleum Wastewater Treatment
• 8. Future Aspects of Nanobiotechnology in Petroleum Industry
• Glossary
• Index