Biodesulfurization in Petroleum Refining

Nour Shafik El-Gendy, Hussein Mohamed Nabil Nassar

• Publisher: Wiley-Scrivener
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119224105
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Subtopic: Ingeniería química y bioquímica

From basic tenets to the latest advances, this is the most comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the process of biodesulfurization in the petroleum refining industry.

Petroleum refining and process engineering is constantly changing. No new refineries are being built, but companies all over the world are still expanding or re-purposing huge percentages of their refineries every year, year after year. Rather than building entirely new plants, companies are spending billions of dollars in the research and development of new processes that can save time and money by being more efficient and environmentally safer. Biodesulfurization is one of those processes, and nowhere else it is covered more thoroughly or with more up-to-date research of the new advances than in this new volume from Wiley-Scrivener.

Besides the obvious benefits to biodesulfurization, there are new regulations in place within the industry with which companies will, over the next decade or longer, spend literally tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars to comply. Whether for the veteran engineer needing to update his or her library, the beginning engineer just learning about biodesulfurization, or even the student in a chemical engineering class, this outstanding new volume is a must-have. Especially it covers also the bioupgrading of crude oil and its fractions, biodenitrogenation technology and application of nanotechnology on both biodesulfurization and biodenitrogenation technologies.

Chapter 1
Background

List of Abbreviations and Nomenclature

4,6-DMDBT	4,6-Dimethydibenzothiophene
4-MDBT	4-Methyldibenzothiophene
API	American Petroleum Institute
BT	Benzothiophene
BTEX	Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylene
Cu	Cupper
DBT	Dibenzothiophene
EEB	European Environmental Burean
FCC	Fluid Catalytic Cracking
FSU	Former Soviet Union
HCR	Hydrocracking
HDS	Hydrodesulfurization
ICCT	International Council on Clean Transportation
IEA	International Energy Agency
LPG	Liquid Petroleum Gas
Ni	Nickel
NOx	Nitrogen Oxides
NSO	Nitrogen, Sulfur and Oxygen
OPEC	Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
PAHs	Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons
PASH	Polycyclic Aromatic Sulfur Heterocycles
Ph	Phytane
PM	Particulate Matters
ppm	Parts Per Million
Pr	Pristane
SOx	Sulfur Oxides
Th	Thiophene
TLV	Threshold Limit Value
UE	Union European
ULS	Ultra-Low Sulfur
USA	United States of America
US-EPA	United States Environmental Protection Agency
V	Vanadium
WTI	West Texas Intermediate

1.1 Petroleum

Nowadays, although the percentage of energy obtained from fossil fuels has decreased, over 83% of the world’s energy is still from fossil fuels, approximately half of which comes from crude oil (OPEC, 2013). Crude oil or petroleum (Black Gold) was formed under the surface of the earth millions of years ago. It is the most important renewable energy source. The largest growth in demand is from developing countries, but the largest consumers of oil are industrial nations. The OPEC has forecasted the demand for crude oil for a long-term period from 2010 to 2035, with an increasing capacity of 20 Mb/d, reaching 107.3 Mb/d by 2035 (Duissenov, 2013). It is estimated that the world consumes about 95 million barrels/per day (i.e. 5.54 trillion barrels/day) in many applications: industry, heating, transportation, generating electricity, and production of chemical reagents that can be used in making synthetics, polymers, plastics, pharmaceuticals, solvents, dyes, synthetic detergents and fabrics, fertilizers, pesticides, lubricants, waxes, tires, tars and asphalts, and many other products (Varjani, 2017). In a typical barrel, approximately 84% of the hydrocarbons present in petroleum are converted into energy-rich fuels (i.e. petroleum-based fuels); including gasoline, diesel, jet, heating, and other fuel oils, and liquefied petroleum gas. Constituents of crude oil are resulted from aerobic and anaerobic enzymatic degradation of organic matter under suitable conditions of temperature and pressure. Crude oils vary widely in appearance and viscosity from field to field. They range in color, odor, and in the properties they contain according to their origin and geographical place. Although all crude oils are essentially hydrocarbons that occur in the sedimentary rock in the forms of natural gas, liquid, semisolid (i.e. bitumen) or solid (i.e. wax or asphaltene), they differ in properties and in molecular structure (Berger and Anderson, 1981). It has been reported that the largest estimated crude oil reserves are in Canada, Iran, and Kazakhstan and approximately 56% of the world’s oil reserves are in the Middle East. Thus, according to the regional basis, the Middle East accounts for nearly 48% of the world’s reserves. Central and South America are the second with approximately 20%, with Brazil and Venezuela leading, and North America is the third with approximately 13%. Table 1.1 summarizes the world wide petroleum reserves as reported by Duissenov in 2013. However, there is a depletion of the high quality low sulfur content light crude oil coming with the increment of the production and use of high sulfur content heavy crude oil (Montiel et al., 2009; Srivastava, 2012; Alves et al., 2015). In the near future, with a harsh worldwide increase in energy demand, the petroleum industry will have to face the fact that sour crude oil and natural gas with high sulfur content is the only energy source of choice. For example, the sulfur content of crude oil input to refineries in USA was 0.88% in 1985, while it reached to 1.44% by 2013 (EIA, 2013).

Table 1.1 The Estimated Proven Reserve Holders as of January 2013 (Duissenov, 2013).

Country	Proven reserves (billions of barrels)	Share of total
Venezuela	297.6	18.2%
Saudi Arabia	265.4	16.2%
Canada	173.1	10.6%
Iran	154.6	9.4%
Iraq	141.4	8.6%
Kuwait	101.5	6.2%
UAE	97.8	6.0%
Russia	80.0	5.0%
Libya	48.0	2.9%
Nigeria	37.2	2.3%
Kazakhstan	30.0	1.8%
China	25.6	1.6%
Qatar	25.4	1.6%
United States	20.7	1.3%
Brazil	13.2	0.8%
Algeria	12.2	0.7%
Angola	10.5	0.6%
Mexico	10.3	0.6%
Ecuador	8.2	0.5%
Azerbaijan	7.0	0.4%
Oman	5.5	0.3%
India	5.48	0.3%
Norway	5.37	0.3%
World total	1,637.9	100
Total OPEC	1,204.7	73.6

The word of petroleum is derived from the Latin words “petr...