Fuel production (pervaporation application)

Fuel is any material that stores potential energy in a form that can be practicably released and used as heat energy. The conventional fuels refer to chemical fuels including fossil fuels and biofuels. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal and petroleum (liquid petroleum or natural gas), formed from the fossilized remains. Biofuel can be broadly defined as solid, liquid, or gas fuel consisting of or derived from biomass.

Since the heightened concerns for cleaner air and more stringent environmental quality requirements for sulfur concentration in oil products, ultra-deep desulfurization from fuels, particularly from gasoline, has become a very important subject in petroleum refining industry. It is well known that sulfur removal from FCC gasoline can be achieved by catalytic hydrodesulfurization. However, this hydrotreating process results in a significant reduction of octane number due to the saturation of olefins (Lin et al. 2009). Pervaporation has been given much more...