Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader.
See Premium Plans
 
SYNTHETIC FUELSYNTHETIC FUEL
amrihgunawan.blogspot.com
Today, the supplier of the world's energy needs, especially gasoline, is stilldominated by petroleum based. Petroleum reserves that could be considered notrenewable day to day will become thinner and eventually will run out because therate of formation is not proportional to the exploitation. On the other hand, worldenergy demand will increase from year to year. Own domestic energy crisis hadbegun. The high world oil prices brought a very large impact on fuel pricesregional economic and the Indonesian economy in general.Limitations of the energy sources are supposed to trigger the discovery of other type of energy sources. One of them is synthetic fuels.Synthetic fuel can be obtained from the processing of natural materials whichcontains solid hydrocarbons (chemically compounds composed of hydrogen andcarbon). Unlike gasoline, the fuel is processed from crude oil, synthetic fuelobtained by extraction of coal, pieces of solid oil (oil shale), tar sands, natural gas,or biomass. Although both types of fuel have a similar composition, they havedifferent source. Coal can be processed to get liquid synthetic fuel through theprocess of disbursement (Liquefaction). Oil shale can be processed into liquidsynthetic fuels through retorting process. Meanwhile, natural gas processedthrough the process gas to liquid technology.As other fuels derived from petroleum, synthetic fuel can also be used for variouspurposes such as fuel for industrial machinery, motor vehicle fuel and fuel for household needs.
Producing Synthetic Fuel 
Manufacture of synthetic fuel requires some fairly complicated process. Ingeneral, the process needs to be done is the extraction of hydrocarbons (HC)from coal, natural gas, oil shale, tar sand, or biomass. After that done,rearrangements of chemical structure H-C obtained through a chemical reaction.
a. Coal
Coal is a fossil fuel formed from the remains of plants (organic) ancient graduallyburied in the earth. In the span of millions of years, these layers will continue togrow because formed new layers on top and cause increased pressure andtemperature layers beneath it. As a result of organic materials are turned into
1
 
coal.From time immemorial, man had begun to utilize the coal as fuel in the housingand also for production machinery fuel. In its development, currently coal hasbecome one of the largest raw materials for power generation.Coal can be synthesized into fuel gas and/or liquid through a gasification process,by heating it up together with water vapor and oxygen. The result is synthetic gas,which is a gas mixture of CO (carbon monoxide), hydrogen, and CH4 (methane).This synthetic gas can be used directly as fuel or further processed to get more"clean" gas. The process to get this gas can also be done without having to minethe coal first. Burning coal deposits that are still in the ground through a drill, andthen pump out the water vapor and oxygen into it. The resulting synthetic gas isthen expelled through a separate channelCoal liquefaction will produce liquid fuel where the composition is very similar tocrude oil. Some common methods used in this process include:
• Indirect Disbursement (indirect Liquefaction)
The first step is gasification, which produces CO, H, and CH4. Carbon monoxide(CO) and hydrogen (H) is extracted and reacted with catalysts include (asubstance that accelerates the reaction but he himself did not come to react). Thisreaction produces liquid fuels. 
• Catalytic Disbursement (Catalytic Liquefaction)
Hydrogen gas is added into the solid coal in a pressurized container. The result isheated, also to include a catalyst. Once cooled liquid fuel formed.
• Solvent Extraction 
Liquid solvent added to the solid coal. The solvent will lead HC decomposition,and then form a solution that finally will mix with hydrogen to produce liquid fuels.
• Pyrolisis
Solid coal is heated together with hydrogen gas in high temperature. As a resultthe molecules of coal will be in the condition of the weakest bond and allowshydrogen joined to form a new molecule. Those new molecules are the liquid fuel.
b. Solid oil shale (oil shale)
Oil shale is a fine granule of the composition of sedimentary rock similar tolimestone. The difference lies in the content of solid organic materials that canreach 25%. Hydrocarbons in the oil shale can be synthesized by the heatingprocess called retorting. Fine powder of oil shale is heated up to 500
o
C in theretorting furnace. By heating the hydrocarbon-containing oil out of rock powder.
2
 
Similar to coal process, the process of oil shale retorting may also be done on theground. The process of drilling conducted in oil shale deposits, and then does theburning to remove the oil-containing HC. HC is then drained / dried, collected andpumped to the surface. This retorting process can produce up to 100 gallons of crude oil from each ton of oil shale sedimentary rock.
c. Tar sands
Tar sands is a sandstone sediments that contain organic material called bitumen(solid or oil contains 20% weight of sandstone). Bitumen can not be pumpeddirectly from the tar sands because of the type of asphalt oil content in it. Whatcan be done is to collect first from tar sand deposits, either by retorting or by usingsolvent. Hydrocarbon can be processed further to obtain bitumen and also toeliminate the usual content of sulfur contained in the bitumen.Bitumen can also be obtained by steam injection process into the layers of rock,the result of hydrocarbons which can then be pumped out.
d. Natural Gas
 Natural gas is one byproduct of petroleum and coal. However, nowadays naturalgas usage is very diverse. Natural gas composed of methane (CH4) as its main component. Natural gas canbe converted into liquid fuels, including gasoline, by utilizing the process of liquefaction (the gas to-liquids technology), the principle is the wiring of hydrocarbons molecules become larger molecules. Methane that has been woveninto the carbon chains can be processed to produce gasoline, diesel oil and jetfuel. By adding water vapor and oxygen to the methane would result in theformation of a series of carbon atoms of methane and eventually formed asynthesis gas. This synthesis gas together with hydrogen and the catalyst isheated to high temperatures. The result of synthetic liquid fuels are "clean" andhigh quality.
e. Biomass
Liquid fuels such as alcohol, ether, and oil can be made of biomass (substancesderived from plants and their derivatives). This type of fuel is usually referred to asbio-fuels, which is actually comes from chemical energy during plants photosynthesis. Bio fuels can be synthesized from various types of plants and seeds. Soybeanand rapeseed for example, can be processed to produce a kind of diesel oil. Cornand sugar cane can be fermented into alcohol. Wood, paper, and grass can also
3
Search
Search History:
Searching...
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
  • p.
    • Notes
    Load more