Detoxification of crude oil

Abstract

Petroleum contributes significantly to our lives and will continue do so for many years to come. Petroleum derivatives supply more than 50% of the world's total supply of energy (Jarullah, 2011). Traditionally crude oil goes though fractional distillation to produce different grades of fuel such as gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, etc. providing fuel for automobiles, tractors, trucks, aircraft, and ships. Catalytic hydrotreating (HDT) is used to detoxify the oil fractions produced by fractional distillation in the petroleum refining industries which involve removal of pollutants such as sulfur, nitrogen, metals, and asphaltene in trickle bed reactors. Recently Jarullah and co-workers proposed detoxification of whole crude oil a priori before the crude oil enters further processing in a fractionating column. This chapter highlights this new technology.