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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-1-119-22358-0
Biotechnology is now accepted as an attractive means of improving the efficiency of many industrial processes and resolving serious environmental problems. One of the reasons for this is the extraordinary metabolic capability that exists within the bacterial world. Microbial enzymes are capable of biotransforming a wide range of compounds and the increasing worldwide attention paid to this concept can be attributed to several factors, including the presence of a wide variety of catabolic enzymes and the ability of many microbial enzymes to transform a broad range of unnatural compounds (xenobiotics), as well as natural compounds. Biotransformation processes have several advantages compared to chemical processes, such as: (i) Microbial enzyme reactions often being more selective; (ii) Biotransformation processes often being more energy-efficient; (iii) Microbial enzymes being active under mild conditions; and (iv) Microbial enzymes being environmentally friendly biocatalysts. Although many biotransformation processes have been described, only a few of these have been used as part of the industrial process. Many opportunities remain in this area.
Biotechnology has been successfully applied at the industrial level in the medical, fine chemical, agricultural, and food sectors. Petroleum biotechnology is based on biotransformation processes. Petroleum microbiology research is advancing on many fronts, spurred on most recently by new knowledge of cellular structure and function gained through molecular and protein engineering techniques, combined with more conventional microbial methods. Several applications of biotechnology in the oil and energy industry are becoming foreseen. Current applied research on petroleum microbiology encompasses oil spill remediation, fermenter- and wetland-based hydrocarbon treatment, bio-filtration of volatile hydrocarbons, enhanced oil recovery, oil and fuel biorefining, fine-chemical production, and microbial community based site assessment. The production of biofuels in large volumes is now a reality, although there are some concerns about the use of land, water, and crops to produce fuels. These come from the biofuels produced by agroindustrial wastes, lignocellulosic wastes, waste oils, and micro- and macro-algae. In the oil industry, biotechnology has found its place in bioremediation and microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR). There are other opportunities in the processing (biorefining) and upgrading (bio-upgrading) of problematic oil fractions and heavy crude oils. In the context of increasing energy demand, conventional oil depletion, climate change, and increased environmental regulations on atmospheric emissions, biorefining is a possible alternative to some of the current oil-refining processes. The major potential applications of biorefining are biodesulfurization, biodenitrogenation, biodemetallization, and biotransformation of heavy crude oils into lighter crude oils, i.e., upgrading heavy oils (degradation of asphaltenes and removal of metals). The most advanced area is biodesulfurization, for which pilot plants exist and the results obtained for biodesulfurization may be generally applicable to other areas of biorefining.
This book reviews the worldwide status of current regulations regarding fuel properties that have environmental impacts, such as sulfur and nitrogen content, cetane number, and aromatic content, summarizes the cumulative, and highlights the recent scientific and technological advances in different desulfurization techniques, including: physical (for example, adsorptive desulfurization ADS), chemical (for example, hydrodesulfurization HDS, oxidative desulfurization ODS), and biological (for example, bio-adsorptive desulfurization BADS, aerobic and anaerobic biodesulfurization BDS, and biocatalytic oxidation as alternative to BODS) techniques. It will also cover denitrogenation processes (physical, chemical and biological ones). Since basic nitrogen compounds inactivate HDS catalysts and non-basic compounds can be converted to basic ones during the refining/catalytic cracking process, they are also potential inhibitors of the HDS process. So, denitrogenation is advantageous both from an environmental point of view (reduction of NOx emissions) and from an operational point of view (to avoid catalyst deactivation, corrosion of refinery equipment, and chemical instability of refined petroleum).
The advantages and limitations of each technique are discussed. The application of molecular biology and the possibility of integration of bio-nano-technology in oil production plants, future oil refineries and bioprocessing of oil, for the production of ultra-low sulfur fuels are also summarized in this book. Challenges and future perspectives of BDS in the petroleum industry and their applications for detoxification of chemical warfare agents, or the production of other valuable products, such as: surfactants, antibiotics, polythioesters, and various specialty chemicals are also covered in this book.
Dr. Nour Sh. El-Gendy
Professor of Petroleum and Environmental Biotechnology
Dr. Hussein N. Nassar
Researcher of Petroleum and Environmental Biotechnology
October 2017