Refining, Materials, Engines

Trevor Craig

Energy Science 110

Refining, Materials, Engines 14

10/27/11         

This lecture was about petroleum and its uses; the lecture was also about both the price cost wise and energy wise for making different materials, and about engines.

There are several different methods for getting the materials we want out of crude oil, for example for a 42 gallon tank of crude oil in the United States the products we get in the end are 18.56 gallons of gasoline, 10.31 gallons of diesel, 4.71 gallons of jet fuel, 1.72 gallons of liquefied petroleum gasses, 1.68 gallons of heavy fuel oil, 7.01 gallons of other products, and 1.38 of other distillates. To get all these different types of fuel there are multiple different processes that people use to refine the oil to get what they want, the 5 basic ones are separation, cracking, reshaping, combining, and treating, in each instance they use a slightly different process to accomplish their goals.

One way oil refiners get what they want from crude oil is by heating the oil to a certain temperature and collecting the gas that boils off of it, and because each fuel has a different boiling point they can all be gathered separately eventually by heating the oil to different degrees, for example gasoline’s boiling point is between 30-200C where fuel oil is up to 375C. Out of all the things that we get from separating the oil we use gasoline primarily taking up 46% of the consumption and diesel taking up 18%.

We use these energy obtained from oil and other things to produce a variety of materials, all which take energy to create. The energy cost of timber is quite low at 1-3 Mj/kg where things like titanium is 900-1000 Mj/kg and things like silicon are 1400-4100 Mj/kg, which is a lot of energy needed. We can save a lot of energy by choosing materials that do not require so much energy to make, for example choosing a steel watch over an aluminum one. We use so many materials in the United States just to live every day; in the US alone every person uses 11.3 metric tons of non-fuel items a year.

The modern day engine has been a work in progress, it originated being extremely inefficient and has slowly became more efficient. The first steam engine was made in 1712 and was less than 1% efficient, today engines are still inefficient but are around 50% efficiency now. We as a people are a work in progress that will continue to improve to react with our changing environment and learn from our mistakes to make the next improvements both in life and in engines.

Refine- to make or become free from impurities, sediment, or other foreign matter; purify.

Distillation- The evaporation and subsequent collection of a liquid by condensation as a means of purification.

ENSC110 Refining, Materials, Engines 14