Catalytic cracking units are big for a reason. The height of the column is what determines what products come off the tower at different temperatures and pressures. Crude oil does not convert completely to gasoline unless your also include a platinum reforming unit to turn smaller carbon chains into bigger carbon chains. Neither of these pieces of equipment are going to be miniaturized down to a couple of semi trailers.
Turning crude into gasoline is a complex process. It requires lots of high pressure steam, cooling water, high heat and once you get the process running, you can't stop it unless you want product to solidify in your lines and ruin the whole thing. There's also a lot of processing, cleaning, drying, blending and treatment that happens in order to make gasoline refined enough to not destroy your engine. Many of these steps and processes will be influenced by the crude you run. Sour (high sulfur) crude or crude with a lot of salt will require more processing. You will also have to deal with all the bottom ends (heavy byproducts like oils and coke) which will not be practical on a miniature scale. Again, there's a reason why refineries are big. Even if you could manage to deal with all this, you will have to sell your "artisanal" faggot gas for more money than anyone would pay because you can't take advantage of economies of scale.
You'd be better off trying to negotiate a contract with a refiner to get them to blend you gasoline to your spec without ethanol or any other additives (which the law will not allow you to do anyway due to muh environment and sheeit). It's just not gonna happen.
I do think that "more and smaller" refineries bolster energy security for any nation, however. Just think if the gulf coast got nuked, everyone is fucked.
I think you are right. This has the possibility of being useful. Small countries and militaries would love this. The problem might be timing.
Know that poal hates ideas.
All true (studied refineries in college). A man can dream though.
Ive heard kerosene is the easiest fuel to make at home but even that isnt a simple thing to do.
Great information, thank you.
From a total noob about this: Is there a way to further clean or refine or make better already-refined gasoline? Like, can you buy 87 octane crap and remove the junk and boost the octane?
Might be a stupid question, but I really know nothing about this.
short answer is Yes, but you gotta dive deep into Fractional Distillation: https://www.epicmodularprocess.com/blog/fractional-distillation
So the next question is: Is it worth it from a business sense to further refine and clean up gasoline? Like does the expense of doing so result in a significant improvement?
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