Science Databases for Chemistry

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.” -- Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)

If anyone out there is wondering which databases to subscribe to, here’s a tip … Take a look at the databases that top tier universities subscribe to.

Here, for example, is what I found on the Web for the Duke University Library.

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Web of Science (AKA Web of Knowledge)
Web of Science includes all the ISI citation indexes. Science Citation Index Expanded is a multidisciplinary database with searchable author abstracts. It indexes 5,300 major journals, covering 2000 more journals than its SCI print and CD-ROM counterparts. Our backfile goes back to 1988 at this time. This is the best source of articles for the past ten years' worth of science writing, and has the added benefit of keeping track of articles which cite one another. VERY USEFUL!
Science of Synthesis
Expanded Academic Index
ProQuest Direct
Beilstein/Gmelin via Reaxys
Applied Science and Technology
Ei Compendex Web
Provides worldwide coverage of significant engineering and technical literature, including 175 disciplines and major specialties within these broad engineering areas: mechanical, civil, environmental, electrical, structural, process, materials science, solid state physics and superconductivity, bioengineering, energy, chemical, optics, air and water pollution, solid waste management, hazardous waste, road transportation, and transportation safety. Besides applied engineering, coverage also extends to manufacturing, quality control, and engineering management issues. Contains over three million English-language abstracts from over 2,600 international journals, conference papers and technical reports. Covers 1980 to the present. Updated quarterly.
Source: http://library.duke.edu/research/subject/guides/chemistry/science-databases.html
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Email hunting

"Diamonds are forever. E-mail comes close.”-- June Kronholz (born 1947), American journalist

What if you find a patent of interest and want to contact one of the inventors listed for that patent?  How do you find the inventor’s email address?

Here is a case study that can help.  It is not infallible … but who is?

First, the steps in the procedure are …
Find a patent of interest
Determine the name of the Inventor you want to contact
Ascertain the Original Assignee
Search for email address patterns for the Original Assignee
Use the patterns to create likely email addresses for the Inventor

We’ll begin with the following patent, which turned up during a recent Google® Patents search. Let’s pretend that we want to find an email address for inventor William J. Novak.

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PATENT
Low temperature adsorbent for removing sulfur from fuel
Original Assignee
Exxonmobil Research And Engineering Company
Inventors
William J. Novak, Joseph E. Gatt
Publication number: US20130109895 A1
Application number: US 13/622,043
Publication date: May 2, 2013
Abstract
The present invention relates to methods for removing sulfur from a hydrocarbon fuel or fuel precursor feedstream, such as methods comprising contacting a hydrocarbon fuel or fuel precursor feedstream having a relatively low sulfur content with a sulfur sorbent material comprising an active copper component disposed on a zeolitic and/or mesoporous support under conditions sufficient to reduce the sulfur content by at least 20 wt % and/or to about 15 wppm or below, thus forming a hydrocarbon fuel product. In some advantageous embodiments, the contacting conditions can include a temperature of about 392° F. (about 200° C.) or less.
Free Full Text Source: https://www.google.com/patents/US20130109895
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Google® the Assignee: email Exxonmobil Research And Engineering Company

One result …

Digital Refining - ExxonMobil Research and Engineering
www.digitalrefining.com/74,sponsors,ExxonMobil_Research_and_Engi...‎
tsl.email@exxonmobil.com ... ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company is a wholly owned research and engineering subsidiary of Exxon Mobil ...

It appears that people who work for the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company will have emails with the extension @exxonmobil.com.

Google®: "email * * exxonmobil.com"

Note that the quotes are important.  They instruct the engine to search for the string as a phrase.  The asterisks are important, too.  They are wildcards which instruct the engine to search for anything that happens to occupy those positions in the search string.

Two results from Google® reveal two patterns …

daniel.bilbao@exxonmobil.com
mary.c.weichel@exxonmobil.com

Now we Google®: William J. Novak “email * exxonmobil.com”

Again, note the quote marks and the asterisk.  This search results in the following article …

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Maximising premium distillate by catalytic dewaxing – DigitalRefining
Free Full Text Source: www.digitalrefining.com/data/articles/file/1351675167.pdf
by T Hilbert - ‎2011
Tim Hilbert, Mohan Kalyanaraman, Bill Novak, Joesph Gatt, Béatrice Gooding and Stephen McCarthy ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (EMRE).
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Browsing to the end of the article, where brief bios of the authors appear, we find another clue …

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Bill Novak is Senior Engineering Associate in ExxonMobil Process Research Laboratories, where he is responsible for new leads and licensing for hydroprocessing and coordinates intellectual property for hydroprocessing and lubes. He has over 30 years’ experience in oil refining technology, mainly in hydroprocessing, reforming, FCC and lubes.
Joseph Gatt is a Senior Researcher in ExxonMobil Process Research Laboratories, currently working on new leads in hydrotreating and dewaxing catalysis, centring on diesel and biodiesel operation. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering from Purdue University.
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Aha!  Our inventor William is also known as Bill.

Now we can construct several possible email addresses for the inventor …

Bill.novak@exxonmobil.com
William.novak@exxonmobil.com
William.j.novak@exxonmobil.com

Caveat … I have not tested any of the email addresses, so all three may be bogus.   But there is a high degree of probability that one of them will turn out to be genuine.

One thing that is not bogus is this blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) … follow it and let your colleagues know about it.  They will thank you for the tip.

The World’s First Direct To Fuels Bitumen Refinery

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it” -- Albert Einstein (German born American Physicist, 1879-1955)

Like a beachcomber who finds a valuable bit of flotsam, I am always thrilled to find a free, full text article on the Web that stimulates my imagination.  The article below is one of my recent finds …

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Energy Procedia 37 ( 2013 ) 7046 – 7055, doi: 10.1016/j.egypro.2013.06.641, GHGT-11
North West Sturgeon Refinery Project Overview – Carbon Capture Through Innovative Commercial Structuring in the Canadian Oil Sands
Kevin Heal & Terry Kemp
North West Redwater Partnership, 2800, 140 4th Avenue S.W., Calgary, Alberta, T2P3N3, Canada
Abstract
North West Redwater Partnership (NWR) is building the world’s first direct to fuels bitumen refinery to combine gasification technology with an integrated carbon capture and storage program. When complete, the first phase of the refinery will produce a range of refined petroleum products with the advantage of having both higher added value and a lower carbon footprint than traditional upgraders or refineries. This project overview will profile the NWR project and discuss the innovative technological approach to incorporate large scale carbon capture in a greenfield Canadian oil sands development.

The NWR opportunity is to break the pattern of making SCO and then sending it to the US for additional processing. Instead, NWR will build a one-step bitumen refinery in the petrochemical cluster of Alberta’s Industrial Heartland that will operate efficiently on all of Alberta’s non-mined bitumen sources to produce marketable products in a single facility. One step conversion has significant cost and environmental advantages and reduces the risks of structural market changes for NWR’s product slate.

The business premise for the NWSR is thus to capture the price spread between heavy bitumen blend crude oil and high value finished products. Despite being a major energy producer, Western Canada is a net importer of distillate products such as diesel. As shown in Figure 3, there is a substantial premium between diesel, a primary product for NWR, and bitumen. The recent growth of oil sands production has increased the industrial need for fuels and refined products, including diesel and also condensate, another core NWR product, which is used to dilute u bitumen and heavy oil for pipeline transportation. This provides a sound investment basis for the NWSR project.
Free Full Text Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610213008849?np=y 
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Find more valuable tips by following the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) … and tell your friends and colleagues about it.

This Is Interesting … Aramco “Virtual” Supplier Conference

“Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.” -- Groucho Marx (American Comedian, Actor and Singer, 1890-1977)

A supplier conference may not seem, at first glance, to have much to do with desulfurization.  But when it is produced by one of the world’s largest oil companies, you can bet that desulfurization technology will be on the list of items of interest.

The Aramco Supplier Conference, sadly, has come and gone.  But if you are a potential supplier, you can still benefit.  You can attend the Aramco “Virtual” Supplier Conference.  Details below …

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As Saudi Aramco’s U.S. subsidiary, ASC-Aramco Services Company (www.aramcoservices.com) helps source products and register suppliers based in the Americas to support Saudi Aramco’s global activities.  In this role, ASC hosts events to raise awareness about opportunities for suppliers, manufacturers and other service providers in the Western Hemisphere.
If you weren’t able to attend the 2013 Saudi Aramco Supplier Conference “Saudi Aramco's Gateway to New Frontiers,” held May 3 in Houston, you are invited to attend it now, virtually.  All the videos and presentations from the conference are available here, and questions can be answered by contacting ASC's Procurement group.
The event was tailored to Americas-based manufacturers of critical products identified by Saudi Aramco.  Manufacturers and suppliers from various parts of the world are advised to contact the office associated with their region.
Event Highlights
More than 350 attendees and presenters discussed the business opportunities offered by Saudi Aramco.
Saudi Aramco’s Abdullah Al-Warthan discussed business opportunities with Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, including the procurement process and how to get involved with the company’s activities, projects and mega-projects.
ASC’s Abdullah Al-Ahmari talked about how Aramco Services Company helps Americas-based suppliers get involved in supplying to Saudi Aramco.
Discover more about doing business with Saudi Aramco, from its large-scale materials supply needs to its contracting and logistics programs.
See the outcome of the supplier program with the procured products and commodities in use to support Saudi Aramco’s massive operations.
Source: http://www.aramcoservices.com/Doing-Business-with-Us/For-Suppliers/What-We-Source/Virtual-2013-Saudi-Aramco-Supplier-Conference.aspx
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Clearly, Aramco is thinking outside the box.  You can, too … just follow the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) for a continuing stream of useful hints and tips on how to use the Web to your advantage.

Conference Alert: Three Biofuel Conferences You May Be Interested in

 “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.” -- Ronald Reagan (American 40th US President (1981- 89), 1911-2004)

Three biofuels conferences, all produced by BBI International (http://www.bbiinternational.com/) are coming up soon …

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1. National Advanced Biofuels Conference & Expo, September 10-12, 2013, Omaha, NE (http://www.advancedbiofuelsconference.com/ema/DisplayPage.aspx?pageId=Home)
2. Algae Biomass Summit, September 30-October 3, 2013, Orlando, Florida (http://algaebiomasssummit.org/ema/DisplayPage.aspx?pageId=About)
3. International Biomass Conference & Expo, March 24-26, 2014, Orlando, Florida (http://www.biomassconference.com/ema/DisplayPage.aspx?pageId=Home)

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It may surprise newcomers to the field that the production of biodiesel requires desulfurization technology.

For example, here is an excerpt from an item produced by Preprocess Inc (www.preprocessinc.com) …

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Sulfur Removal Strategies for Biodiesel
High FFA fats, oils and grease are feedstock for ASTM 6751 biodiesel. These feedstocks contain higher levels of sulfur than traditional feedstocks. Common oil crops contain sulfur species that are water soluble and remain with the meal during oil processing. High FFA feedstocks from cooking and rendering operations contain oil soluble sulfur species that require additional processing steps to produce ASTM 6751 biodiesel that meets the 15 ppm sulfur specification. It all begins with good feedstock characterization.
Biodiesel Feedstock Species and Sources
Biodiesel feedstock can contain sulfur in many different species. The most prevalent are mercaptans. They can be high molecular weight complex mercaptans with aromatic ring backbones, or simple lower molecular weight species with straight chain backbones. Other more complex sulfur containing products can be found where there is significant animal protein degradation. Characterize each feedstock for sulfur and use a high/low sulfur feedstock blending strategy targeting the average sulfur feedstock levels so the process will output the 15 ppm sulfur limit.
source: http://www.preprocessinc.com/files/documents/3047b294218ca6a019562a8f987dfc1f.pdf
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Do you find this information useful?  Then please follow the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) and tell your colleagues about it.  They will appreciate it.