Green Petrochemicals

Petrochemicals are chemical products made from raw materials of petroleum or other hydrocarbon origin.
Although some of the chemical compounds that originate from petroleum may also be derived from coal and natural gas, petroleum is the major source.
The largest petrochemical industries are to be found in the USA and Western Europe, though the major growth in new production capacity is in the Middle East and Asia.
There is a substantial inter-regional trade in petrochemicals of all kinds. World production of ethylene is around 110 million tons per year, of propylene 65 million tons, and of aromatic raw materials 70 million tons.

Green Chemistry

During the last decade the field of Green Chemistry has rapidly evolved with strong support from major chemical companies, trade, and professional associations. The central goal of this work is reduction of pollution from chemical production and end use and reduction of energy used in production. Sustainable chemistry is a very new, born thirty years ago but just now starting to START, let's help it get up on its feet.
Green chemical technologies products, are made from base oils, achieving an ultimate biodegradability ranking form the ASTM standard D5864 which defines "Ultimate Biodegradable" as a product that is rapidly absorbed (eaten) by microorganisms by 60% in 28 days.

Green Fuel (Bio-Fuel)

Biofuels or biodiesels are fuels that are, in essence, biodegradable and non-toxic. They are manufactured from vegetable oils, waste cooking oils, animal fats or tall oil. These oils undergo a process called transesterification whereby they are subjected to a reaction with an alcohol (usually methanol or ethanol) using a catalyst such as sodium hydroxide. The resulting chemical reaction produces an ester called biodiesel and a by-product called glycerin.
Pure biodiesel fuel is significantly less flammable than petroleum diesel which burns at 50 degrees Celsius. Biodiesel's flashpoint (the temperature at which it will ignite if it is exposed to a spark) is about 150 degrees Celsius. Pure biodiesel tends to lose its viscosity or to gel at lower temperatures when compared to petroleum.

In order to become a genuinely environmentally friendly addition to our energy supplies, biofuels need to be generated using land that is not presently being used for food production or that is covered with natural vegetation such as rainforests. One developing possibility is the use of desert areas to produce algae biodiesel.

Making fuel out of the plant matter left over after a crop is harvested is another possibility. Plants are made mainly of cellulose which is simply very long chains of sugar molecules joined together. It is the intertwining and chemical bonding between strands of cellulose that make them so hard to digest. One way of breaking cellulose apart is using the enzyme cellulase. This enzyme dissolves the cellulose strands into simple sugars as do the enzymes in our mouths, for example when we suck on a piece of bread.
Being able to produce the enzyme cellulase in commercial quantities would surely be a key advance toward developing truly environmentally friendly fuels. Since all plants are made virtually entirely from cellulose we could make fuel from any waste plant material, lawn clippings, bamboo, dead branches, driftwood, anything. Unfortunately use of cellulase in industrial applications for this purpose is still in the experimental phase.

plants