BACKGROUND In light of the rapid decrease in fossils fuel reserves and an increasing demand for energy, novel methods are required to explore alternative biofuel production processes to alleviate these pressures. A wide variety of molecules which can either be used as biofuels or as biofuel precursors are produced using microbial enzymes. However, the common challenges in the industrial impleme...

Present energy situation of the world is unsustainable due to unequal geographical distribution of natural wealth as well as environmental, geopolitical and economical concerns. Ever increasing drift of energy consumption due to growth of population, transportation and luxurious lifestyle has motivated researchers to carry out research on biofuel as a sustainable alternative fuel for diesel eng...

In model-based refinery scheduling, the varying composition of the crude being refined is a major challenge, especially for those reaction processes. In this paper, a classification based, multi-model approach is proposed to handle the frequently varying crude. The idea is to build a scheduling model for each type of feed crude, and the type can be determined by using an online classifier. The ...

The March 2005 British Petroleum (BP) Texas City Refinery disaster provided a stimulus to examine the state of process safety in the U.S. refining industry. Participatory action researchers conducted a nation-wide mail-back survey of United Steelworkers local unions and collected data from 51 unionized refineries. The study examined the prevalence of highly hazardous conditions key to the Texas...

Atmospheric pressure combined with a partial vacuum within chemical plant or refinery tanks can result in some ego-deflating moments. This article will review three catastrophic vessel failures in detail and touch on several other incidents. A 4000-gal acid tank was destroyed by a siphoning action; a well maintained tank truck was destroyed during a routine delivery; and a large, brand new refi...

Oil refineries provide the lifeblood for global economic health, and disruptions to their operations have major worldwide impact. We are developing a large-scale intelligent refinery control system to assist human operators in controlling refineries during abnormal situations. Based primarily on reactive and procedural approaches to intelligent behavior, the Abnormal Event Guidance and Informat...

In this study, the opportunity to invest in combined heat and power (CHP) plants and second-generation biofuel production plants in Europe is investigated. To determine the number and type of production plants, a mixed integer linear model is used, based on minimization of the total cost of the whole supply chain. Different policy scenarios are studied with varying values of carbon cost and bio...

Despite a rapid worldwide expansion of the biofuel industry, there is a lack of consensus within the scientific community about the potential of biofuels to reduce reliance on petroleum and decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although life cycle assessment provides a means to quantify these potential benefits and environmental impacts, existing methods limit direct comparison within and be...

In recent years the popularity of biofuels has been transformed from a sustainable option for transportation to a questionable and criticized method. Many reports have therefore been produced to view biofuel production from a life cycle perspective; though results may be misleading. In a number of the reports, biofuel production is viewed in a linear manner, i.e. crops and energy in and biofuel...

The productive cellulosic crops switchgrass and Miscanthus are considered as viable biofuel sources. To meet the 2022 national biofuel target mandate, actions must be taken, e.g., maize cultivation must be intensified and expanded, and other biofuel crops (switchgrass and Miscanthus) must be cultivated. This raises questions on the use efficiencies of land and water; to date, the demand on thes...