Dutch research targets cleaner petrol

Delft, The Netherlands — Delft University of Technology is investigating the use of a largely forgotten chemical process to produce cleaner petrol via catalytic cracking — an important process applied in modern oil refineries.

The Delft research, led by PhD student Xander Dupain, is focusing on the use of a combination of catalytic cracking with the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis — a chemical process, which was developed during World War II for the production of synthetic fuels from coal.

Currently, catalytic cracking requires a further expensive hydrotreatment process to clean the petrol and diesel sufficiently and bring it into line with the necessary specifications.

Dupain believes that catalytic cracking of the products from Fischer-Tropsch synthesis offer a cost effective alternative to hydrocracking for the production of clean and high-quality petrol and diesel by-product.

Until the recent spike in oil prices the Fischer-Tropsch method had gone mostly out of fashion. However the process is now increasingly being used to obtain relatively clean synthetic diesel from natural gas and to make products with extremely low concentrations of sulphur, nitrogen and aromatics.