The Dating Game: Google® Date Search

If you, like me, follow various technologies and want to restrict search results to the most recent, like, say, the last month, both Google® Scholar and plain old Google® offer ways to do so.

Here are some hints on how to do so, using the simple keyword desulfurization as an example.

The tips below are based on my experience on a laptop using IE6 and Firefox. If you use a different browser or device, it may look different on your screen, but the principle remains the same.

Google® Scholar (https://scholar.google.com)
Click triple bar (upper left corner)
Click Advanced Search
On the Form:
with all words: desulfurization
Return articles dated between 2018-2018
Click the search icon (looks like a magnifying glass) in upper right of the form)

Obviously, the form allows you to customize your search using other parameters.  The same holds true for plain old Google®, but the plain old Google form looks different.

First step: Google® desulfurization
Click Settings
Click Advanced Search
Click drop down for last update
Select past 24 hours, past week, past month, or past year
Click Advanced Search

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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide

Building a Better Bypass: Aramco’s Crude to Chemicals Play

A recent Reuters article describes Aramco's push into chemicals by teaming with petrochemicals giant SABIC to build a complex that converts crude oil into chemicals directly, bypassing the refining stage.

Here are excerpts from the article …

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7/19/2018
DUBAI,  (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco said it is looking to buy a strategic stake in Saudi petrochemical maker SABIC, a move that could boost the state oil giant's market valuation ahead of a planned initial public offering.
Riyadh-listed SABIC, the world's fourth-biggest petrochemicals company, is 70 percent owned by the PIF, Saudi Arabia's top sovereign wealth fund. It has a market capitalization of 385.2 billion Saudi riyals ($103 billion).
Reuters reported on Wednesday that Saudi Aramco had invited banks to pitch for an advisory role on the potential acquisition of a strategic stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), citing two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Aramco wants to develop its downstream business as the government prepares to sell up to 5 percent of the world’s largest oil producer, possibly by next year. Boosting its petrochemicals portfolio further could help attract investors for the IPO.
Aramco's push into chemicals includes a mega-project it is building at home with SABIC. The $20 billion project would be to build a complex that converts crude oil into chemicals directly, bypassing the refining stage.
(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh and Rania El Gamal, additional reporting by Marwa Rashad and Katie Paul; Editing by Richard Pullin and Adrian Croft)
source: http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/news/2018/07/saudi-aramco-in-talks-to-buy-stake-in-worlds-no-4-chemical-firm
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TIP: Google the phrase Crude to Chemicals for items like the following …

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Why Crude Oil to Chemicals?
In many parts of the world today, the demand for chemicals is growing at a much higher rate than the demand for transportation fuels. With advances in catalytic technology, modern complex refineries can be configured to convert crude oil directly to chemical feedstocks instead of transportation fuels.
A crude-to-chemicals plant would use the latest refining technology that mixes innovative configurations with proven catalytic conversion processes to create an integrated petrochemical complex.
The CB&I Solution
We offer one of the industry’s most extensive technology portfolios to the hydrocarbon processing sector and have commercialized, on average, a new technology every year for the last decade.
CB&I can provide reliable technology solutions that enable not only crude oil to chemicals conversion, but also a full range of refining, gas processing, petrochemicals and gasification applications.
In addition, with our integrated project delivery model, we can combine our technology portfolio with our other products and services to support customers through the entire plant life cycle.
source: https://www.mcdermott.com/C/Crude-to-Chemicals
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Crude Oil-to-Chemicals and Other Disruptive Technologies Will Have a Significant Impact on Chemical Industry, IHS Markit Says
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The convergence of two significant and revolutionary technological developments in the petrochemical industry -- crude oil-to-chemicals (COTC) and oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) -- are poised to have a very significant impact on the chemical industry, according to new analysis from IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), the leading global source of critical information and insight.
“would cut capital costs by 30 percent compared to conventional refining.”
This analysis from Don Bari, vice president of chemical technology at IHS Markit, follows on an announcement made earlier today by Siluria Technologies, which has joined forces with Saudi Aramco Technologies: Siluria Technologies and Saudi Aramco Technologies Company join forces to maximize chemical production.
In the past decade or so, disruptive technology development and deployment have been dominant on a global basis in the petrochemical industry and largely driven by the extreme pricing dynamics of the energy industry, translating directly to fundamental petrochemical feedstocks; where such new technology has enabled deployers of capital and technology to use low-cost and locally abundant feedstocks.
One of the most significantly disruptive technologies or categories of technologies being developed, based on their sheer volume, is crude oil-to-chemicals. These projects, in effect, merge a refinery and petrochemical plant into one, and thus, go well beyond the state-of-the-art refinery petrochemical integration by the implementation of new/reconfiguring unit operations into a refinery.
The objective is to shift the product slate derived from a barrel of oil to a range of 40 percent to 80 percent chemical feedstocks and non-fuel products, up from the traditional range of 15 percent to 25 percent, in order to significantly increase the value of crude oil reserves. For example, Saudi Aramco Technologies Company publicly announced (in a joint news release with Siluria Technologies issued earlier today, Siluria Technologies and Saudi Aramco Technologies Company join forces to maximize chemical production): “Maximizing the output of high-value chemicals products from our future crude-oil processing projects is one of the key objectives in our downstream technology strategy, said Ahmad Al Khowaiter, chief technology officer of Saudi Aramco.”
The Siluria Technologies process, which produces olefins directly from natural gas through oxidative coupling (chemistry) of methane (OCM), is expected to further allow Saudi Aramco’s future crude oil-to-chemicals facilities to create more value by converting the very low-value off-gases (largely methane) into higher-value olefins products, which improves carbon efficiency and increases the volume of the barrel of oil directed to valuable fundamental petrochemicals.
Competitive and sustainable advantages of such a fully integrated crude oil-to-chemical facility:
• Upgrades a lower-value stream into a higher-value product through greater operational efficiency and optimization of assets. Greater capital efficiency--leverages a well-integrated upstream (refinery) with the downstream (chemicals) operations to increase efficiency of deployed capital (maximum investment-per-ton of production capacity) through scale; and decreases operating costs through carbon efficiency and low fixed operating costs. (In a Reuters News article published Jan. 18, 2018, Aramco chief technology officer Ahmad Al-Khowaiter said the process called thermal crude-to-chemicals technology “would cut capital costs by 30 percent compared to conventional refining.”).
• Sustainability gains through the reduction in the overall carbon footprint of a facility due to integration and optimization of assets, which become more efficient.
The “disruption” to conventional petrochemical producers would likely be the loss of market position due to COTC’s immense petrochemical volume. For example:
• The global demand for ethylene and propylene are 160 million metric tons (MMT) and 111 MMT per year, respectively, and at approximately 4 percent annual growth rate, the required global annual capacity additions would be 6.4 MMT and 4.4 MMT of ethylene and propylene, respectively.
• These volumes could nearly be supplied from two large-scale 200,000 barrel-per-day COTC complexes (see analysis below and note that multiple FCCs, cracking furnaces and cracked gas compressor/separation trains would be required); instead of four conventional state-of-the-art naphtha-cracking light olefins plants.
• If multiple COTC facilities are eventually built, the export dynamics would, over time, change significantly and put pressure on olefin and feedstock-related derivative exports from the U.S. According to our IHS Markit estimates, U.S. exports of these olefin and feedstock-related derivatives will reach approximately 14 MMT by 2020.
Siluria Technologies: Addressing sustainability through carbon efficiency—A new operational metric?
Siluria Technologies’ oxidative coupling of methane to ethylene (and propylene) process converts methane to olefins in the presence of a catalyst in an oxygen-rich environment. The catalyst reaction “diverts” roughly half of the carbon to the undesirable co-products of carbon monoxide (CO) or carbon dioxide (CO2). In this highly exothermic (heat generating) reaction. Siluria exploits this exotherm by injecting ethane or propane into a second reaction chamber, where the light alkane is thermally cracked to the olefin.
Moreover, to enhance the overall carbon efficiency of the process, a catalytic methanation step is embodied in Siluria’s process. This reaction converts all generated CO and a portion of the CO2 oxidative coupling reaction co-product back to methane by using the hydrogen generated in both the OCM and the ethane/propane-cracking reaction in the post-OCM section of the reactor.
In fact, the Siluria process design philosophy is all about less total carbon (methane) consumed per unit of light olefins produced, because the process is “indifferent” to methane as a feedstock, or as energy (process utility). Therefore, one would expect that a design philosophy that equates British thermal units (BTU) of energy savings to a reactor-conversion-per-pass percent increase should drive that most optimum overall process design.
Significant carbon reduction through process design
The Siluria OCM process also delivers significant reduction in carbon emissions over traditional ethylene production processes. IHS Markit evaluation of total carbon dioxide emissions to the production of ethylene by various feedstock types shows that the Siluria technology is expected to be a net-negative CO2 producer per ton of ethylene/olefins produced because of the heat generation for the OCM exotherm, and methane production (partly) from CO2 is considered in our methodology as an offset to CO2 emissions. IHS Markit estimates that the Siluria Technologies OCM process generates negative 1 ton of carbon dioxide emissions equivalents per ton of ethylene produced as compared to the more conventional naphtha-cracking process for converting crude to olefins, which is estimated at greater than 1.4 tons of CO2 produced per ton of ethylene produced. This is a significant improvement in carbon emission reduction, while at the same time capturing greater value from the molecules.
How can Siluria Technologies add to the impact of crude oil-to-chemicals mega complexes?
Independent and detailed technical analysis by IHS Markit of a Saudi Aramco-type COTC approach (as described in Saudi Aramco’s patent literature) projects that crude oil feedstock will be converted to chemicals at a higher intensity than conventional processes, increasing the yields of crude oil feedstocks converted to chemicals to 72 percent. (Note that a January 18, 2018 Saudi Aramco announcement by Reuters states that it expects, with its developing COTC technology, “70 percent to 80 percent of the crude intake will be converted into chemicals….”).
With the recent cooperation announcement by Siluria Technologies and Saudi Aramco Technologies Company to work together in the COTC process to maximize the production of chemicals from a barrel of oil, IHS Markit speculates that if the methane off-gas and a portion of the ethane in a hydrocracked Arab Light crude oil feedstock were to be fed to the Siluria OCM technology, then a net increase of 300 thousand metric tons (TMT) to 350 TMT of ethylene and 200 TMT to 250 TMT per-year of propylene, would be generated (based on 10 million metric tons (MMT) per year (200,000 barrels per day) of crude feed). With methane valued at U.S. $1.25 per MMBTU in the Middle East, the Siluria OCM technology appears to be an attractive approach to enhance the value of a barrel of oil.
Direct oxidative coupling of methane to ethylene has been an elusive goal
The oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) to ethylene has attracted significant attention since its discovery in the early 1980’s. Compelling efforts to produce ethylene directly from natural gas have been made, yet no OCM process has been commissioned at commercial scale.
The two major companies that tried to commercialize OCM, ARCO and Union Carbide, did extensive catalyst screening studies in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. ARCO reviewed several transition metal oxides as oxidative coupling catalysts. Manganese oxide catalysts on silica support where found to be the most attractive for methane conversion to ethylene. However, high-product yields required operating temperatures above 800°C. Higher operating temperatures led to methyl radicals forming higher-carbon number products, and undesirable products (CO, CO2, and coke) formed.
A similar conclusion was reached by Union Carbide. The Union Carbide research showed that the development of more active (and selective) catalysts potentially operating in the 400°C to 600°C range might permit industrial operation. Although those catalysts showed promising yield and selectivities, they were significantly hampered by long-term catalyst stability issues, largely due to the required high-reactor inlet temperatures.
Siluria has developed and scaled-up a proprietary commercial, low-temperature OCM catalyst that can operate adiabatically with fewer stages at several hundred degrees °C lower inlet temperatures, and at higher pressures. This catalyst produces a favorable yield and has a standard lifetime for a commercialized process; and it has a relatively high-space velocity. According to U.S. provisional patent applications, Siluria’s proprietary catalyst is based upon mixed-metal oxide nanowires.
The heart of Siluria’s process technology is a two-stage adiabatic reactor. Within the reactor, heat recovery is a significant technology feature, where the exothermic heat from OCM is used to thermally crack the by-product and fresh ethane and propane to ethylene and or propylene. As previously mentioned, a methanation step is employed to convert co-product CO, CO2 and H2 back to methane, and to enhance overall carbon and energy efficiency of the process.
To enhance the overall carbon efficiency of the process, a catalytic methanation step is included in Siluria’s process. This reaction converts all generated CO, and a portion of the CO2 OCM, back to methane by using the hydrogen generated in both the OCM and ethane-propane cracking-reaction sections of the post-OCM section of the reactor.
The product gas from the OCM reactor moves downstream to the generally conventional olefins cracking separation, recovery and fractionation steps. However, Siluria has developed proprietary separation and recovery technology, including optimizing system hydraulics, thermodynamics (pressures and temperatures) and heat integration, to minimize energy consumption.
This is especially necessary given that the methane-per-pass-conversion is relatively low due to the thermodynamic limitations of the OCM adiabatic-reaction design. The low methane-conversion-per-pass means that a large amount of methane must be recompressed and cryogenically cooled at great capital and energy expense, to recover the olefin products.
In short, the intersection of a global hydrocarbon resource powerhouse such as Saudi Aramco, with Siluria Technologies, a small, but innovative, process-technology company, is expected to yield significant returns for both entities, but also drive the industry forward in process improvements, greater carbon efficiency, capital efficiency and value creation. While these technologies are capitally intensive, the commercial application of these two revolutionary technologies not only enables greater carbon efficiency, flexibility and value to the petrochemical producers, but also a significant route to greater carbon emission reduction, which has an untold value to chemical producers and to the sustainability of the industry. This sustainability value will likely only continue to increase as more consumers, investors and regulators seek greater environmental stewardship from petrochemical producers.
For more information on the Siluria Technologies OCM process, the crude oil-to-chemicals technologies, the IHS Markit Process Economics Programs (PEP) covering these and other disruptive technologies, or to speak with Don Bari, please contact: melissa.manning@ihsmarkit.com.
About IHS Markit (www.ihsmarkit.com)
IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO) is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide. The company delivers next-generation information, analytics and solutions to customers in business, finance and government, improving their operational efficiency and providing deep insights that lead to well-informed, confident decisions. IHS Markit has more than 50,000 business and government customers, including 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500 and the world’s leading financial institutions.
IHS Markit is a registered trademark of IHS Markit Ltd. and/or its affiliates. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners © 2018 IHS Markit Ltd. All rights reserved.
source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180613006109/en/Crude-Oil-to-Chemicals-Disruptive-Technologies-Significant-Impact-Chemical
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Is It Rude, Or Just Crude? Crude to Chemicals

Hydrocarbon Engineering, July 2018, features the following article …

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A different mindset
With uncertainty in the global transportation fuels market, Ujjal Mukherjee, Chevron Lummus Global, USA, outlines key considerations for crude to chemicals operations.

Ujjal Mukherjee is the Vice President, Technology, for Chevron Lummus Global. He has worked in the petrochemicals and refining industry for over thirty-four years. His special area of expertise is technology development in distillate and residue hydrocracking. Ujjal has been personally involved in the conception and design of 45 hydrocrackers, including most of the largest operating hydrocrackers in the world. Ujjal holds 24 patents in high-pressure hydroprocessing and is the author of many technical articles and reference chapters related to refining technologies. Ujjal has a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from Rutgers University.
source: https://ertc.wraconferences.com/speaker/ujjal-mukherjee/
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TIP: Google® Ujjal Mukherjee Chevron Lummus Global
One interesting result …

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NEW HYDROPROCESSING APPROACHES TO INCREASE PETROCHEMICALS PRODUCTION
By
Daniel B Gillis and Theo Maesen, Chevron Lummus Global (CLG)
CLG is a joint venture between Chevron and CB&I
Abstract
Over the past several years there has been increased interest in combining refinery and petrochemical projects to maximize production of the highest value products while meeting transportation fuel needs. To accomplish these often competing objectives, the hydroprocessing approaches utilized in the refinery are critical. Both the processes and catalysts selected have a significant impact on petrochemical feedstock production. Recently, CLG has been assisting several of our clients with identifying ways to increase their project values based on our extensive portfolio of residue hydrotreating, residue hydrocracking, and VGO/Distillate hydrocracking technologies. This paper shares some of these newer approaches now available and compares their benefits with the traditional paths for producing petrochemical feedstocks.
Refinery’s Role in Petrochemical Production
The conventional roles of hydroprocessing in petrochemical production has been to pretreat FCC (or RFCC) feed so as to increase propylene and naphtha yields, especially heavy naphtha as it is an important reformer feedstock, and a source for C8-C10 aromatics. Other refinery streams suitable for petrochemical production include light naphtha and LPG steam cracker feeds.
The manufacture of petrochemical feedstocks frequently competes with the manufacture of transportation fuels. This is because:
- Maximum propylene production requires the (R)FCC to operate at higher severity as compared maximum gasoline production. Figure 1 illustrates this for a RDS/RFCC refinery configuration at different RFCC severities.
- Maximum aromatics production requires maximum reformate production, which in turn requires maximum heavy naphtha production. A VGO hydrocracking unit can be tailored toward maximum heavy naphtha production with as high a C8-C10 aromatics content as possible, but maximizing the naphtha-range aromatics yield will be at the cost of the middle distillate yield, in particular the diesel yield. Interestingly, there appears to be a shift in transportation fuel demand from diesel toward gasoline in some of the very same regions that are interested in enhanced production of petrochemical feedstocks.
Residue Conversion Approach Implications
Irrespective of a refinery’s focus on the manufacture of transportation fuels or of petrochemical feedstocks, the fate of the residual oil is frequently a critical component of the refinery margin. There are three major residue conversion options of interest to most projects:
- Delayed Coking has historically been the most popular full conversion technology. However, it has a disadvantage in that this process yields a comparatively large fraction of less desirable products like fuel gas and coke. Coke yields can be as high as 30 to 35 wt%.
- Residue Hydrotreating (RDS) is attractive for maximizing gasoline and thereby propylene yields. A disadvantage is that this process exhibits limited feedstock flexibility, and that it struggles in particular to handle the heaviest feedstocks.
- Residue Hydrocracking (RHC) is attractive for maximizing the yields of liquid product manufacture with the broadest possible feed slate. Typical residue conversion yields with an ebullated bed process such as LC-FINING are 65-80+ wt%. Combining LC-FINING with coking  can boost conversion levels toward 85-90 wt% and reduce the coke make to 12-14 wt%. This combination results in 15-20 wt% higher liquid yields compared to coking by itself, as shown in Figure 2. Also shown are CLG’s latest RHC high conversion offerings of LC-MAXTM and LC-SLURRYTM, which have even higher total liquid yields. The higher total liquid yields accessible with the LC-FINING technology platform tend to be in the middle distillates boiling range, so that they require further processing so as to be turned into petrochemical feedstocks.
Refiners invariably want the reliability of proven technologies in new projects yet want to maximize profitability by their ability to respond to supply and price volatility for both feedstocks and products. Thanks to recent technical advances, CLG can now offer solutions based on the reliable LC-FINING and RDS technology platforms that expand feedstock optionality and that provide the desired flexibility to diversify product dispositions, e.g. switching emphasis from diesel to naphtha or from transportation fuel to petrochemical feedstock production. These advances include both processes and catalysts.
Free full text: https://www.mcdermott.com/MDRSite/media/CLG-Resources/New-Hydroprocessing-Approaches-to-Increase-Petrochemicals-Production-Rev-4.pdf
source: https://www.mcdermott.com/MDRSite/media/CLG-Resources/New-Hydroprocessing-Approaches-to-Increase-Petrochemicals-Production-Rev-4.pdf
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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide