Lesson 11 Overview

PRESENTER: Now we have talked about on many occasions the evolution of a refinery based on, of course, the demands for the products. All the way from a one pot distillation refinery. Or we can call it a separation refinery. Just to make kerosene for the lamps, for lighting.

Now it's widely considered and claimed that very process saved the whales from extinction. Because instead of now using whale oil in lamps, one could use kerosene without much smoke. And the light to actually let people extend daylight in essence.

Of course, with the electric light, kerosene was not demanded. But as you know, as we've talked about before, the demand for another fuel, or gasoline, was increasing. So from separation, or distillation refinery, we went to the thermal refinery to make more gasoline for the increasing number of automobiles. And, of course, the lubricating oil that is needed in these engines.

So the thermal refinery performed quite well, up until the 2nd World War, to use just heat to make the chemical changes that are needed to change the composition of the crude oil to fit with the product demand in essence. With the 2nd World War raging, with the demand for high performance fuels, the catalytic processes were introduced.

So we are in the catalytic refinery, taking over from the thermal refinery. And the catalytic refinery continued, of course, after the 2nd World War. An interesting historical note.

The oil companies that were competing before the 2nd World War, in the United States, and in Western Europe, got together to develop these catalytic, many of these catalytic processes that are still used today. In an effort, obviously, to develop more powerful fuels for the war effort.

So that is a very interesting era in the history of petroleum refining, where competition turns into collaboration. To make, of course, more powerful fuels for the more powerful war machine. Until the end of the century, obviously, this trend continued.

And the next stage is referred, in some text, as the end of the century refinery. Where the focus now is really on the very heavy end. Because as we are using crude oil in the marketplace, the crude oil available for becoming or for refining becomes heavier.

So when you do the distillation, there's a huge amount of active distillation residue that is separated. So the end of the century refinery focuses on treating these heavy ends, essentially hydro processing. Using different reactor configurations. Using essentially the chemistry, chemical modeling, to determine the reaction chemistry.

Kinetics for more optimum conversion of these very heavy ends. The most challenging parts of the crude oil to be converted into the light distillates.

So on one hand, we have an increasing demand for lighter fuels like gasoline, diesel, jet fuel. And on the other hand, we do have a crude oil base that is getting increasingly heavier, and dirtier. So the end of the century refinery focused on treating and hydro treating these heavy ends to make the lighter and cleaner products.

As we have mentioned at the beginning of this course, there's a new trend. That is the hydro fracking to make, essentially to produce shale gas. But there is a liquid byproduct. And it won't be too long before hydro fracking is used to produce oil also.

So in the 21st century we may see yet another significant change in the refinery scheme to incorporate shale oil that is produced by hydro fracking into the refinery. To be refined into the mix of the fuels and materials that are needed in the marketplace.