Unit - II

Fuels & Combustion

Liquid Fuels
 Introduction
 Liquid fuels are derived from two main sources:
from crude oil and coal.

 The liquid fuel obtained from coal is negligible as

compared to the fuel obtained from petroleum.

 Based on the their use, liquid fuel can be divided

into two classes:

 Light oil or sprite (suitable for I.C. Engines)

 Heavy oil (suitable mainly for burning in

furnaces)
 Introduction
 Most liquid fuels used currently are produced from
petroleum. The most notable of these is gasoline.

 Scientists generally accept that petroleum formed

from the enormous quantities of animal and plants
debris accumulated in the Earth's crust.

 This debris, when subjected to anaerobic bacterial

action gets decomposed.

 This decomposed debris in the earth crust, under

the high heat and pressure converted into a black
viscous product known crude oil.
 Crude oil
 Crude oil is a naturally occurring, unrefined
petroleum product composed of hydrocarbon
deposits and other organic materials.
 A type of fossil fuel, crude oil can be refined to
produce usable products such as gasoline, diesel,
and various other forms of petrochemicals.
 The approximate, crude oil consists of
84 – 87 wt % carbon,
11 – 14 % hydrogen,
0 – 3 wt % sulphur,
0 – 2 wt % oxygen,
0 – 0.6 wt % nitrogen and
0 – 100 ppm metals
 Crude oil
 Based on chemical analysis and existence of
various functional groups, refinery crude can be
broadly categorized into about 9 categories
summarized as:

1. Paraffins 6. Organic sulphur

2. Olefins 7. Oxygen containing
3. Naphthenes 8. Resins
4. Aromatics 9. Asphaltenes
5. Napthalenes
 Paraffins
 Paraffins refer to alkanes such as methane, ethane,
propane.

 Paraffins contain suffix “ane” and general formula

is CnH2n+2.

 It can be classified as normal Paraffins and iso

Paraffins.

 Examples n and iso butane, n and iso pentane.

 These compounds are primarily obtained as a gas

fraction from the crude distillation unit.
 Normal Paraffins
 Normal Paraffins are usually stable and have low
specific gravity.

 The compounds are gases at normal temperature

and pressure.
 Iso Paraffins
 Iso Paraffins are the isomers of the normal
paraffins.

 There chemical formulas remains the same as that

of normal paraffins but the arrangements of atoms
is modified.
 Olefins
 Olefins are generally named with suffix “ene”, e.g.-
Pentene, Octane etc.

 They have a straight carbon chain but with one or

more carbon atoms doubly bonded together.

 Olefins are unsaturated hydrocarbons.

 Olefins
 They can be Monolefins (chemical formula CnH2n )
and diolefins (chemical formula CnH2n-2 ).

 They are chemically active as compared to other

hydrocarbon.

 and have good burning characteristic because they

get oxidized and polymerized easily.

 The thermodynamic properties of olefins are similar

to normal paraffins.
 Naphthenes
 Naphthenes are designated by the term cyclo in their
name because of the carbon ring in the molecule.

 In the Naphthenes carbon ring only a single carbon-

carbon Bond appears.
 Naphthenes
 They have the same general formula CnH2n as for
monolefins but they are saturated.

 These hydrocarbons are not found in large volume in

light oils but are usually found in heavy oils they
have good burning characteristics.

 These compounds are not aromatic and hence do

not contribute much to the octane number.

 Therefore, in the reforming reaction, these

compounds are targeted to generate aromatics
which have higher octane numbers than the
naphthenes.
 Aromatics
 Aromatics are those hydrocarbons which have a
benzene ring in their molecular structure.

 The benzene ring consists of six carbon atoms in a

ring with alternate carbon atoms double bonded.
 Aromatics
 The thermodynamic properties of aromatic are
similar to those of naphthenes.

 There burning characteristics in gasoline engine are

excellent.

 However, because aromatic compounds containing

a higher portion of carbon they have a tendency to
smoke.

 Aromatics: Aromatics such as benzene, toluene are

also available in the crude oil.
 Aromatics
 These contribute towards higher octane number
products and the target is to maximize their quantity
in a refinery process.
 Napthalenes

 Napthalenes is an aromatic hydrocarbon found in

crude oil.

 It is a polynuclear aromatics consist of two or three

or more aromatic rings.
 Organic sulphur compounds

 Not all compounds in the crude are hydrocarbons

consisting of hydrogen and carbon only. Organic
sulphur compounds also exist in the crude oil.

 The basic difficulty of these organic sulphur

compounds is the additional hydrogen requirements
in the hydrotreaters to meet the euro III standards.

 Therefore, ever growing environmental regulations

indicate technology and process improvement on the
processing of organic sulphur compounds.
 Oxygen containing compounds

 These compounds do not exist 2 % by weight in the

crude oil.

 Typical examples are acetic and benzoic acids.

 These compounds cause corrosion and therefore

needs to be effectively handled.
 Resins

 Resins are polynuclear aromatic structures

supported with side chains of paraffins and small
ring aromatics.

 Their molecular weights vary between 500 – 1500.

 These compounds also contain sulphur, nitrogen,

oxygen, vanadium and nickel.
 Asphaltenes

 Asphaltenes are polynuclear aromatic structures

consisting of 20 or more aromatic rings along with
paraffinic and naphthenic chains.

 A crude with high quantities of resins and

asphaltenes (heavy crude) is usually targeted for
coke production.
Thank You