Reviewing Catalysis Reviews

“From my close observation of writers...they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.” --  Isaac Asimov (Russian born American science-fiction Writer and Biochemist. 1920-1992)

I really like technology reviews.  A good review saves time in so many ways.  It explains where the technology came from and where it’s going.  It describes the challenges being addressed by current researchers.  And it names key researchers and their key works.

Catalyss Reviews: Science and Engineering, true to its name, is a great source of reviews.  Since catalysis is the focus, and since catalysis lies at the heart of desulfurization, you could do worse than reviewing this review on a regular basis.

Here is an excerpt from a recent 122 page article ...

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Catalysis Reviews: Science and Engineering, 52:204–324, 2010

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0161-4940 print / 1520-5703 online

DOI: 10.1080/01614941003720167

Kinetics and Modeling of Petroleum Residues Hydroprocessing

Abdulazem Marafi1, Antony Stanislaus1, and Edward Furimsky2

amarafie@prsc.kisr.edu.kw

1Petroleum Refining Department, Petroleum Research and Study Center, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat, Kuwait

2IMAF Group, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

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“2.3. Effect of Feed Origin and Analysis

“The detailed characterization of residues and corresponding products is necessary in order to quantify changes occurring during hydroprocessing. In most cases, the removal of heteroatoms (e.g., sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen), metals (vanadium and nickel) and some hydrocarbon groups from the feed have been the objectives of kinetic measurements. For residues, the overall conversion of asphaltenes and resins as well as CCR, with time on stream has been quantified. Complex nature of residues requires the advanced analytical techniques for a more detailed characterization.”

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“3.2. Kinetics Involving Residues

“The products containing no resins, asphaltenes, and metals is an ultimate goal of hydroprocessing of petroleum residues (1–10). In addition, the content of other contaminants in products (e.g., sulfur and nitrogen) must be below regulatory limits. A desirable performance of fuels and lubricants requires a suitable distribution of hydrocarbon groups. Therefore, the kinetic studies involving distillation residues and heavy crudes focus on conversion of resins and asphaltenes to lighter fractions as well as on removal of metals, sulfur and nitrogen. The quality of final products may only be attained after employing several hydroprocessing stages. The number of upgrading stages increases with the increasing content of contaminants. With respect to the overall hydroprocessing, every stage must be described by a different set of kinetic data rather than using the same set of data for all stages.”

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Time Saver Tip: And I Quote …

“Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.” -- E. B. White (American writer 1899-1985)

Let’s say you wanted find articles written by S. van Eijk.  And let’s say you want to search the author field of ScienceDirect for that name.

You can put S. van Eijk in the ScienceDirect author field.  The resulting hit list contains 169 items.  As you begin browsing,you notice that none of them seems to be authored/co-authored by S. van Eijk.

Save time by enclosing S. van Eijk in quotes … “S. van Eijk”

The quotes instruct the search engine to search the author’s name exactly as you have typed it.

The result of this search strategy is just two (2) hits … much more manageable.

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2-(1-Alkenyl)- and 2-aryl-substituted four-membered cyclic nitrones as precursors for 2,3,4-substituted pyridines and quinolines  Original Research Article
Tetrahedron, Volume 45, Issue 10, 1989, Pages 3131-3138
W. Verboom, P. J. S. S. Van Eijk, P. O. M. Conti, D. N. Reinhoudt

On the potential of absorption and reactive adsorption for desulfurization of ultra low-sulfur commercial diesel in the liquid phase in the presence of fuel additive and bio-diesel  Original Research Article
Fuel Processing Technology, Volume 92, Issue 3, March 2011, Pages 616-623
J.A.Z. Pieterse, S. van Eijk, H.A.J. van Dijk, R.W. van den Brink

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The search tips in the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com} are brought to you by Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC.  We recommend that you follow the blog to see new tips as they are posted … and let your colleagues know about the Blog as well.

Case Study: Stay Alert … With Alerts

"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself” -- Mark Twain (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)

Online database vendors like EbscoHost, LexisNexis, and ScienceDirect work hard to make it easy for you to access their data.  Librarians and other information professionals work hard to make your people aware of the resources and how to use them.

Example … suppose you are interested in a topic characterized by the key phrase …

Sulfur breakthrough

You search, let’s say, ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.coms) and come up with several interesting items …

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On the potential of absorption and reactive adsorption for desulfurization of ultra low-sulfur commercial diesel in the liquid phase in the presence of fuel additive and bio-diesel 

Fuel Processing Technology, Volume 92, Issue 3, March 2011, Pages 616-623

J.A.Z. Pieterse, S. van Eijk, H.A.J. van Dijk, R.W. van den Brink

Low temperature H2S dry-desulfurization with zinc oxide

Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, Volume 127, Issue 3, February 2010, Pages 190-197

Hector F. Garces, Hugo M. Galindo, Luis J. Garces, Jennifer Hunt, Aimee Morey, Steven L. Suib

Desulfurization for Fuel Cells

Fuel Cells: Technologies for Fuel Processing, 2011, Pages 317-360

Santosh K. Gangwal

Selective adsorption of dibenzothiophene by functionalized metal organic framework sorbents

Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Volume 103, Issues 3-4, 5 April 2011, Pages 261-265

Fan Shi, Maha Hammoud, Levi T. Thompson

A zeolite based vapor phase adsorptive desulfurization process for naphtha

Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 21 January 2011

Anshu Nanoti, Soumen Dasgupta, Vasudha Agnihotri, Pushpa Gupta, Amar N. Goswami, Madhukar O. Garg, Elisabeth Tangstad, Michael Stöcker, Arne Karlsson, Ørnulv B. Vistad

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Wouldn’t it be great to be notified every time the ScienceDirect added a “sulfur breakthrough” item to its database?

You can.  ScienceDirect makes it easy.  Here is some information from the ScienceDirect Web on the what and the how …

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Types of Alerts

The following types of alerts are available:

Search	Search alerts notify you by e-mail when new documents matching your search criteria become available online. See Saving a Search Alert to create a search alert.
Topic	Topic alerts are predefined searches on a specific topic, such as inorganic chemistry. Topic alerts notify you by e-mail when new documents on a particular topic are available. See Adding Topic Alerts to add topic alerts.
Volume/Issue	Volume/Issue alerts notify you by e-mail when a new issue of a particular journal or a new book volume becomes available. See Managing Volume/Issue Alerts to create a volume/issue alert.
Citation	Citation Alerts notify you by e-mail when a selected document is cited by new documents that have become available on ScienceDirect®. See Saving a Citation Alert to create a citation alert.

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Adding RSS Feeds

You can create an RSS feed for your alerts by clicking the button next to an alert. The RSS feed provides links to new articles that match your alert criteria.

Note	RSS availability is dependent on settings determined by your librarian or system administrator.

source: http://help.sciencedirect.com/robo/projects/sdhelp/alert_access_all.htm#rss

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Speaking of RSS Feeds … remember to add the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) as a feed to your Intranet Home Page.  It’s an easy way to increase productivity.  And, by the way, it’s FREE!

ResearchGATE … social network for the serious scientist

“Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?” -- Bill Watterson (American Author of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, b.1958)

NPR-National Public Radio (www.npr.org) is my preferred source for general news.  A couple of days ago it surprised me … it featured a piece on ResearchGATE (www.researchgate.com) – a social network aimed specifically at research scientists.

To quote from the NPR piece …

“A few years ago, while he was doing research at Harvard, Ijad Madisch could not figure out why his experiment wasn't working. His adviser didn't know what was wrong, nobody in his lab worked on the same stuff, and none of his researcher friends could help … That's when Madisch got the idea for a scientist network: ResearchGate — a sort of Facebook for scientists. Instead of sharing favorite photos and videos, researchers could use the Web platform to connect with each other and share information that doesn't get published”

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135513803/like-share-learn-facebook-for-scientists

Lest you think, “Oh, God, not ANOTHER way to waste my time,” Google® this …

Researchgate desulfurization

One interesting result, from ConocoPhillips, is …

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Unraveling heavy oil desulfurization chemistry: targeting clean fuels

Tushar V Choudhary, Stephen Parrott, Byron Johnson

ConocoPhillips Company, Bartlesville Technology Center, Bartlesville, Oklahoma 74004, USA.

Environmental science & technology. 04/2008; 42(6):1944-7.

Abstract

The sulfur removal chemistry of heavy oils has been unraveled by systematically investigating several heavy oils with an extremely wide range of properties. The heavy oil feed and product properties have been characterized by advanced analytical methods, and these properties have been related to the sulfur conversion data observed in pilot hydrotreating units. These studies coupled with kinetic treatment of the data have revealed that the desulfurization chemistry of heavy oils is essentially controlled by the strongly inhibiting three and larger ring aromatic hydrocarbon content and surprisingly not by the content of the "hard-to-remove" sulfur compounds. Such enhanced understanding of the heavy oil sulfur removal is expected to open new avenues for catalyst/process optimization for heavy oil desulfurization and thereby assist the efficent production of clean transporation fuels.

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Today’s tip to serious desulfurization researchers: Join ResearchGATE.

Another tip: add the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) as a feed to your homepage.

Bookmark Alert: New Technology Magazine-The First Word on Oilpatch Innovation

“Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.” -- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Spanish writer, author of the masterwork 'El quijote', 1547-1616)

You should bookmark New Technology Magazine (http://www.newtechmagazine.com/).  It focuses on upstream technology, including upgrading heavy crude.  One article that interested me …

Petrobank's THAI Technology Expands Exploitable Bitumen In Place

source: http://www.newtechmagazine.com/issues/story.aspx?aid=1000363947

Here is some information from the New Technology Magazine Web …

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About

New Technology Magazine reports on new and cost-saving technologies in the upstream oil and gas industry.

Our award-winning magazine, published 10 times a year, is recognized throughout the industry for delivering informative and timely articles on drilling and completions, production, oilpatch software, heavy oil and oilsands, unconventional gas, seismic and geophysical technologies, and the environment.

This website houses an archive of past magazine editions. In addition, oilpatch technology news is posted daily.

source: http://www.newtechmagazine.com/about/

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And here are results from a search on the New Technology site …

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Search Results For: Heavy Oil & Oilsands

Total Canada To Help Fund E-T Electro-Thermal Oilsands Technology Testing

Source: Daily News| 2011-04-15

Privately held E-T Energy Ltd., which is developing its patented ET-DSP (electro-thermal) technology for producing heavy oil and bitumen from oilsands, is getting some support from Total E&P Canada Ltd.

Veolia Provides SAGD Produced Water Treatment System For Southern Pacific

Source: Daily News| 2011-04-13

Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies has been awarded the supply of key portions of the produced water treatment system by Southern Pacific Resource Corp. for their STP-McKay Thermal Project in Northern Alberta. Southern Pacific, as with...

PyroPhase Method To Store Renewable Energy By Heating Heavy Oil Deposits Patented

Source: Daily News| 2011-04-07

A new technology, radio-frequency (RF) heating, can store massive amounts of renewable energy by heating heavy oil deposits, and producing liquid fuels without CO2, says PyroPhase Inc.

Ivanhoe's Heavy-To-Light Patent Protection Solidified To 2028

Source: Daily News| 2011-03-28

Ivanhoe Energy Inc. has announced a new patent has been successfully issued that broadens and extends Ivanhoe Energy's intellectual property related to its HTL (Heavy-to-Light) heavy oil upgrading technology.

Heavy Oil Prize Large, But Expensive And Will Require Collaboration

Source: Daily News| 2011-03-25

Worldwide heavy oil production could double to 18 million barrels per day over the next two decades, but the investment required to get there will be huge and industry will need to work together on technology and lowering the environmental...

Technology Key To Higher Heavy Oil Recovery Rates, Says Saskatchewan Energy Minister

Source: Daily News| 2011-03-21

The Saskatchewan government is looking at ways in which it can work with companies to encourage improved recovery rates for its heavy oil resources, says the province's energy minister.

Governments Of Canada And Saskatchewan Invest In Heavy Oil Research

Source: Daily News| 2011-03-18

The Pipe Flow Technology Centre at the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) will become one of Canada's first research facilities equipped to handle hazardous explosive materials such as crude oil, thanks to an expansion funded jointly by the...

E-T Energy Signs Deal To Pursue ET-DSP Use In US Heavy Oilfields

Source: Daily News| 2011-03-10

E-T Energy Ltd. has announced it has signed an exclusive cooperation agreement with ConTherm Management, LLC to pursue opportunities to apply E-T Energy's proprietary electrical heating technology in shallow heavy oil and tar sand resources in...

Halliburton Integrates Drilling Capabilities To Deliver Optimized Drilling Performance

Source: Daily News| 2011-03-01

Halliburton announces it has integrated the drilling capabilities of several product service lines (PSLs) to deliver significant drilling performance gains and save operators millions of dollars in well costs.

Imperial Completes Deal For International Development Of Oilsands Technology

Source: Daily News| 2011-02-04

Imperial Petroleum, Inc. has announced it has completed an agreement to develop its previously announced oilsands recovery technology in Canada and certain countries internationally.

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Three (3) tips to make your life easier …

1.       Bookmark the New Technology Magazine site

2.       Add the New Technology Magazine headlines RSS Feed to your home page

3.       Follow the Desuflurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) for continuing tips and tricks

LinkedIn Groups: In case you wonder what all the fuss is about

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” -- Mark Twain (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)

There is lots of valuable information available on the Web.  The problem these days is not a lack of information, but how to find your way to the information you need.  When you run into a well constructed brick wall, consider using a social network to help you find your way.  One such network is LinkedIn.

Yes, most of what passes for information on social networking sites like LinkedIn is nothing more than naked self-promotion.  Still, LinkedIn groups like Frontier & Unconventional Resources provide the opportunity for the exchange of actual information.  See the following set of posts (names have been deleted, but if you join LinkedIn and the Frontier & Unconventional Resources group, you can see them.) The tip to remember here: Ask, and you (maybe) will receive.
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LinkedIn Group: Frontier: & Unconventional Resources
Well data required for unconventionals research project (9 comments)
Started by Chris

I'm trying to source some data for a joint university MSc research project that we at Exprodat (http://www.exprodat.com/) are running on unconventionals.

Specifically I'm looking for the following well data:
- Location
- Maturity (VRo)
- Total organic carbon (%)
- Structure (thinkness/depth)

The data could be for any unconventional resource type (eg shale gas, CBM), so long as it was for a single play.

Does anyone out there know of a free data source, or where I could potentially buy some data?


If you go to the Alberta Geological survey site http://www.ags.gov.ab.ca/publications/publications.aspx you will find a wealth of open file reports on "unconventionals" with some of the material you are looking for. Review the "Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin" same site for the key intervals Duvernay, Exshaw, Montney etc
Most State Geological Surveys have well data you can get for free. I know One state that has a web site where you zoom in on a state map until you are down to township size, then you can click your mouse on indiviual wells or groups of wells. Through this you can get well reports that have other links to logs and other geologic data. I know other many states have similar things. Some states will send you log data if you contact them or they may require you to send them a hard drive.

Chris• John, many thanks for the great link to the Alberta Geological survey site. This looks to have much of what I'm looking for. Regards, Chris.


Agree with Mark Smith. Oklahoma Geological Survey has a large CBM/Shale Gas database and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission has a lot of free post-1995 logs that can be downloaded free.



Another good source is "The Hydrocarbon Assessment Compilation for the TGI II is a compilation of several datasets related to oil and gas accumulations for the entire TGI II area." http://www.gov.mb.ca/stem/mrd/geo/willistontgi/hydro.html The description of the project can be found at; http://www.gov.mb.ca/stem/mrd/geo/willistontgi/abouttgi.html.

The state of ND and MT both have a wealth of data also but the TGI compilation allows for quick review of the system.

Helpful are the geochemical data. "The geochemistry data is a compilation of Rock-Eval and total organic carbon (TOC) data from various sources, including GSC open file reports, Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) publications, and Manitoba Geological Survey in-house data for southwestern Manitoba, and Saskatchewan east of 106° longitude."

Very thought provoking is Leigh Price Paper: "Origins and Characteristics of the Basin-Centered Continuous Reservoir Unconventional Oil-Resource Base of the Bakken Source System, Williston Basin". http://www.eerc.und.nodak.edu/price/



Oklahoma Geological Survey has pretty decent database for the Arkoma Woodford Play. Brian Cardott is an excellent source to get details on the analysis done. I provided multiple samples for him to include in his work for the state.



Guys, you've given me more data than I know what to do with! Thanks for your fantastic responses - really appreciated!

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Here's another tip ... when that proverbial brick wall hits you in the head, consuslt with your organization's librarian for help.  And remember to follow the Desulfurization Blog (http://www.desulf.blogspot.com/) for a contiuing stream of tips and tricks to make life easier for you.

Set Up Alerts To Take Advantage Of Corporate Subscriptions

“A lot of men think that if they smile for a second, somebody will take advantage of them, and they are right” -- Don Herold (US cartoonist and humorist, 1889-1966)
Today’s post brings you three (3) tips to make you a more effective online researcher and, by extension, more effective in your job.

• Use the online databases to which your employer subscribes.  If you are not sure what databases are subscribed, contact your librarian a.k.a. information progessionl
• Create alerts in your area of interest.  Google® provides this service.  So do the major vendors of online databases … EbsoHost, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, to name a few.
• Search beyond alerts for more information on a given article.  For example, I subscribe to several ProQuest alerts.  One of them uses the key word “dibenzothiophene.”  Alerts appear in my Outlook inbox.  When I see one of interest, I then search for that title on ScienceDirect.  ScienceDirect provides much more detailed abstract information than other vendors.  The information is available whether or not your organization subscribes to ScienceDirect.  Obviously, if your organization does subscribe, you should set up alerts within ScienceDirect … Alerts are a service available only to subscribers.

To illustrate above tips, here is something that appeared in my Outlook inbox.  Scroll down to see the difference between the ProQuest information and the ScienceDirect information.
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EXAMPLE: dibenzothiophene in ProQuest showed up in my email
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THE ALERT AS IT APPEARED IN MY INBOX
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Logging into ProQuest, I found the following …

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Unfortunately, full text for this particular article is not available under my organization’s ProQuest agreement.  I thought it might be worth purchasing, but wanted more details before making the purchase decision.  Googling® the title, I found the following in ScienceDirect.
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Journal of Catalysis
Volume 279, Issue 2, 25 April 2011, Pages 269-275
Oxidative desulfurization of dibenzothiophene and diesel over [Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀ Jian Zhang^a, Anjie Wang^{a, b, ,} , Xiang Li^{a, b} and Xuehu Ma^b
ajwang@dlut.edu.cn
^a State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116012, PR China
^b Liaoning Key Laboratory of Petrochemical Technology and Equipments, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116012, PR China
Received 16 November 2010; 
revised 15 January 2011; 
accepted 19 January 2011. 
Available online 15 February 2011.

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AbstractA hybrid material ([Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀) was synthesized by reacting H₃PMo₁₂O₄₀ with the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium bromide. SiO₂-supported [Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀ showed a high catalytic activity in the oxidation of dibenzothiophene (DBT) with 29% H₂O₂ aqueous solution as the oxidant. Maximum activity was observed at a loading of 20 wt.% [Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀ on SiO₂, and 100% DBT conversion was achieved at 60 °C, atmospheric pressure, and an oxygen to sulfur (O/S) molar ratio of 3.0 in 100 min. The high performance of [Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀/SiO₂ might be attributable to its amphiphilicity, which enhances adsorption of both H₂O₂ and sulfur-containing compounds. [Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀/SiO₂ could be easily separated by centrifugation and reused without deactivation after seven runs. Quinoline and carbazole had slightly positive effects on DBT oxidation, whereas indole had a negative effect. The high performance of [Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀ was verified in the sulfur removal from a real diesel by means of oxidation followed by dimethylformamide extraction.
Graphical abstract

[Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀/SiO₂, which is amphiphilic, exhibits high catalytic performance in the oxidation of dibenzothiophene and a real diesel. Quinoline and carbazole show slight promoting effects, whereas indole strongly inhibits the oxidation.
Research highlights► [Bmim]₃PMo₁₂O₄₀/SiO₂ is an outstanding catalyst in oxidative desulfurization. ► The aqueous phase adsorbs on catalyst particles, which work like microreactors. ► The aqueous phase and solid catalyst are separated simultaneously from oil phase. ► The dried spent catalyst was reused for seven runs without deactivation. ► Nitrogen compounds may have positive or negative effects.Keywords: Oxidative desulfurization; Dibenzothiophene; Ionic liquid; Phosphomolybdic acid; Quinoline
Article Outline
1. Introduction
2. Experimental
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Oxidation of sulfur-containing compounds
3.2. Role of nitrogen-containing compounds in the oxidation of DBT
3.3. ODS of a real diesel
4. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Appendix A.
Supplementary material
References///////

You can see how much more informative the ScienceDirect abstract details are … giving you a sounder basis on which to make a decision to purchase.
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Making informed decisions is important to technology researchers in all fields.  Bookmark the Desulfurizaton Blog (http://www.desulf.blogspot.com/) for more online research tips.  Better yet, add it as an RSS Feed to your homepage.