Abstract
FEW industries have expanded more rapidly than that of petroleum. The enormous demand for motor spirit has brought about both an increased production of crude oil and an overhaul of the methods of distillation and refining, including cracking and hydrogenation, so as to produce a petrol of high quality suitable for use in the automobile of to-day. Whilst there has been much progress on the mechanical side, including the design of stills, of cracking plant and of apparatus for the storage and transport of very large quantities of oil and gas, there has also been a great deal achieved on the chemical side of petroleum technology. The numerous members ¦ of the four classes of hydrocarbons—saturated, unsaturated, aromatic and naphthenic, are found in varying proportions according to the origin of a petroleum: they can be separated by rational treatment with various chemicals and by systematic fractional distillation. Such prepara- ¦ tions are laborious and research in the main is directed to the separation of the four principal classes, as it is on the proportions of these that the value of a petroleum for a particular purpose depends. Thus Pennsylvania and Galicia oils are rich in saturated hydrocarbons, the Baku oils contain naphthenes, Borneo crudes are rich in aromatics—indeed at one time toluene was extracted from them.
The Scientific Principles of Petroleum Technology.
By Dr. Leo Gurwitsch Harold Moore. New edition. Pp. xii + 572 + 9 plates. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1932.) 30s. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
A., E. The Scientific Principles of Petroleum Technology . Nature 132, 83 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132083a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132083a0