Petroleum refinement

[soccerballtux]

As I understand it there are various grades of oils in gasoline.
If our diesel consumption increased, is it possible to decrease the gas byproduct of refinement by further refinement? IE separating gasoline into the lighter oils for use in aircraft, giving us more diesel.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Not sure that I follow, gasoline is lighter than Jet A (kerosene)...

From lightest to heaviest -

Liquified petroleum gas
Gasoline
Naphtha
Kerosene and related jet aircraft fuels
Diesel fuel

You can however convert natural gas to diesel, kerosene or paraffin using a Gas to Liquid process.

In case that doesn't help here are some references -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/oil-refining.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids

 

[Mark R]

In many cases, there is not enough gasoline fraction in the crude oil - but this depends on the type of crude, and local gasoline demand.

To meet demand, some of the heavier fractions (e.g. diesel, lubricating, heavy oil and bitumen) can be "cracked", using sophisticated catalytic or hydrogenation/hydrolysis process to convert them into lighter fractions, such as gasoline.

In practice, "light" gasoline rich crudes are depleting much faster than "heavy" gasoline poor crudes, so there is increasing demand for cracking plants.

 

[sao123]

interesting, i didnt realize that small aicraft still use leaded gasoline.

 

[Smoblikat]

Never knew naptha was a fuel. Thought it was only used to make drugs 😛

 

[CycloWizard]

In principle, a refinery can be tailored to produce virtually any output fractions you want. The science and engineering of these processes is perhaps better understood than any other process on the planet. The cost of altering the output is not trivial though as processes (operating conditions and possibly equipment) would require modification. Historically, when kerosene was the fuel of choice, the goal was to actually minimize gasoline production through the refinement process: gas was burned in pits as a useless byproduct. Thus, the methods for producing a low-gasoline output are pretty well known.