Frontiers in Chemical Engineering Research Needs and Opportunities (1988) / Chapter Skim
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6 Processing of Energy and Natural Resources
6 Processing of Energy and Natural Resources
Pages 79-104
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From page 80... ...
The energy processing industries constitute one of the country's largest industrial segments. In 1985, shipments of petroleum and coal products amounted to $194 billion, and the value of natural gas produced in the United States exceeded $42 billion.2 The availability of secure fuel supplies is vital to national defense.
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From page 81... ...
Enhanced Oil Recovery Technologies for oil production can be divided into three classes: primary recovery, secondary recovery, and enhanced oil recovery. In primary recovery, the oil and gas flow naturally through the reservoir rock to the production well, impelled b subterranean pressure.
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From page 82... ...
In addition, there are entire oil deposits so viscous "ultraheavy" crudes, bitumens, and tars that primary recovery is not possible and secondary recovery processes are generally ineffective. Such deposits in the United States approach the potential of conventional oil reserves, and on a worldwide basis they are several-fold greater than total reserves of the lower viscosity conventional crude oils.
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From page 83... ...
Some major problems include poor vertical coverage, inefficient sweeping that bypasses pockets of oil, and severe channelling of fluids along fissures or highly permeable layers of rock. Chemical methods of compensating for these inhomogeneities would boost the yields and cut the operating costs of enhanced oil recovery.
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From page 84... ...
The NPC study of EOR estimates that with currently implemented EOR technologies the _' ~ STEAM AND CONDENSED WATER ZONE FIGURE 6.4 Steam flooding is one of two principal thermal methods for oil recovery and has been commercially applied since the early 1960s. A mixture of steam and hot water is continuously injected into the oil-bearing formation to displace mobilized oil to adjacent production wells.
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From page 85... ...
. Reprinted with permission from Enhanced Oil Recovery.
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From page 86... ...
Reprinted with permission from Enhanced Oil Recovery. Copyright 1984 by the National Petroleum Council.
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From page 87... ...
A further benefit of in-situ coal gasification is the potential for exploiting coal reserves that cannot be mined economically. However, it is no less complex than in-situ recovery of heavy tars or shale oil, and the engineering challenges are comparable.
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From page 88... ...
New Raw Materials for Petroleum Refineries As the domestic mix of fossil fuel resources changes over the coming years, new challenges will emerge for the design and renovation of our nation's installed base of refineries. While the practical aspects of this task must be left to the petroleum and gas industries, there is a need for fundamental research to provide new design concepts and for trained engineering personnel to maintain international competitiveness in these in
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From page 89... ...
The co-processing of coal with heavy crude oil or its heavier fractions is being developed to lower capital requirements for coal liquefaction and to integrate processing of the products of coal conversion into existing petroleum refineries. This development appears to represent the main route by which coal-based liquid fuels will supplement and perhaps someday displace petroleum-based fuels.
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From page 90... ...
plant converts natural gas into high-octane gasoline at the rate of 14,500 barrels a day.4 Further developments in the process promise to extend the product slate to include other fuels as well as lubricants and chemicals. Through the coal
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From page 91... ...
The process employs circulating fluidized beds and operates at moderate temperatures and pressures. The reactor produces liquid fuels and excess coke.
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From page 92... ...
About one-third of the plants produce lowpressure steam for heating, another one-third produce high-pressure steam for electric power generation, and the balance also exhaust lowpressure steam for industrial or municipal heating.5 Process problems include slag formation, ash removal, and process control because of the heterogeneous solid waste feed. These problems have been managed to some degree by "over designing" the plant, with the result that combustion of municipal solid waste is not economically competitive in areas where low-cost electricity or landfills for waste disposal are available.
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From page 93... ...
Its key features include a closely coupled fuel cycle for recovery, purification, and recycling of the uranium-plutonium core fuel alloy and extraction of a plutonium concentrate from the uranium blanket, where new plutonium is generated, for reenrichment of the core fuel. Any fast breeder fuel cycle must include fuel reprocessing because of the inescapably high concentration of fissionable materials in the used fuel.
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From page 94... ...
0.`'··O~ ·~> _ ~r=~ r _ ~1 O-0 ~. ;·0;~ ~';-02 ~° ACE FIGURE 6.12 Chemical process steps lie at the heart of the nuclear fuel cycle used in the United States.
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From page 95... ...
Solar Power The challenge of solar energy research is to discover or develop efficient processes for trans forming radiant solar energy into usable electrical energy or chemical fuels. Solar energy has inherent advantages over other energy sources.
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From page 96... ...
Furthermore, the logistics of collecting today's available biomass would be forbidding. If a large area for producing biomass for energy were to be set up, it would almost certainly have to be on marginal land and would FRONHERS IA' ~L ENGI.~NG require greater than average use of fertilizer, irrigation, and mechanical work, all of which consume fuel energy themselves.
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From page 97... ...
Many research needs in this area parallel those of in-situ processing of oil shale and recovery of heavy crude oils. Additional research needs cover a broad spectrum of mining, metallurgical, environmental, and chemical engineering: solids handling and comminution, separations and concentration processes for ore beneficiation, electrolytic processing, solvent extraction, and treatment and disposal of waste products.
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From page 98... ...
INTELLECTUAL FRONTIERS The basic technologies used in the energy and natural resource processing industries have many elements in common, and the chemical engineering profession has a long history of finding and adapting basic technologies to the needs of diverse industries. No profession is better suited by tradition and training to attack the many difficult technical problems of these industries.
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From page 99... ...
The handling of coal, oil shale, and ores would be improved by research on the mechanics of pneumatic and slurry transport of particulate solids, particularly on the mechanisms of failure through plugging, attrition, and erosion. Improved processes for coal liquefaction and gasification could come from research on particulate transport in fluidized beds, including highpressure gas-fluidized beds of large particles, ebulated beds, and liquid slurry reactors.
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From page 100... ...
This will require close cooperation among the fields of mechanical, mineral, and chemical engineering and between disciplines in the earth and physical sciences. Separation Processes Separations play a vital role in the processing of energy and natural resources.7 Improved separations can lead to improved efficiency of existing processes or to economical means for exploiting alternative resources.
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From page 101... ...
/ / · Radium Vitamin B-12 Penicillin ~ ~ / uranium from Ore Id Gold Copper ./ Magnesium from Seawater / .. ~ Bromine from Seawater Mined Sulfur Sulfur from Stack Gas / ~ Oxygen L Factor of 2 ~ differential in price 100 percent 1 percent 1 percent 1 thousandth of 1 millionth of 1 percent D I LUTI O N (expressed as percent concentration FIGURE 6.13 The importance of separation processes in determining the eventual cost of materials and products is illustrated in this figure.
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From page 102... ...
Thus, there is significant opportunity for improvement of separations by creating ways to reduce energy consumption without a commensurate increase in capital and operating costs. Researchers in separation science and technology draw on and contribute to a variety of related fields, including · phase-equilibrium thermodynamics; · mass transfer and transport phenomena; · interracial phenomena, including surface and colloid chemistry; · mechanisms of chemical reactions, especially complexation reactions; · analytical chemistry; and · computer-assisted process and control en glneerlng.
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From page 103... ...
The problem of ever-increasing construction costs dates from the mega-project concept of World War II and the race toward an overnight synthetic fuels industry. Nevertheless, large construction projects will be needed to bring coal gasification, coal liquefaction, and oil shale processing to fruition.
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From page 104... ...
Enhanced Oil Recovery. Washington, D.C.: National Petroleum Council, 1984.
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