Core Documents

Librarians and independent bibliographic researchers such as myself provide research support for a broad range of clients, each of whom may be pursuing any number of lines of research. Since we can’t be experts in every technology we are asked to research, one of the first things we like to do is to find an article or other document that gives us an overview of a particular area of technology. Reading the document gives us clues as to possible strategies to produce the results our clients expect.

So when I ran across …
CHAPTER 5: Fuel Standard Feasibility IN: Final Regulatory Impact Analysis (2004)

I browsed through it for clues on how to research the deep desulfurization of diesel. Here is a representative paragraph that caught my eye …

“After careful review of all these approaches, we expect that the sulfur reduction required by the 500 ppm sulfur standard will occur through chemical removal via conventional hydrotreating. For complying with the 15 ppm cap for NRLM diesel fuel, we expect it will be met primarily through liquid-phase hydrotreating, which is an emerging advanced desulfurization technology. This section will begin with a relatively detailed discussion of the capabilities of these various processes. Refiners may use the other methods to obtain costeffective sulfur reductions that will complement the primary sulfur reduction achieved via hydrotreating. These other methods, such as FCC feed hydrotreating, adsorption and chemical oxidation are discussed following the primary discussion of distillate hydrotreating and liquidphase hydrotreating. Another means for aiding the desulfurization of diesel fuel, particularly to comply with the 15 ppm standard, is undercutting, which removes the most difficult-to-treat sulfur compounds. Since undercutting can help ease the task of complying with the 15 ppm standard for any of the desulfurization technologies, we provide a discussion of undercutting below.”

This may be old news to you, the primary researcher. However, it may be very helpful to your partner in research, the corporate librarian or the independent bibliographic researcher. If you know of such a document in your area of interest, share it with your research support person.

Read the complete document at:
www.epa.gov/nonroad-diesel/2004fr/420r04007f.pdf