OIL REFINING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22166, 20 July 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

OIL REFINING

NEW PROCESS REPORTED r All motorists welcome developments either along tho lines of increased efficiency or economy in motoring. They should be particularly interested, therefore, in a new oil refining process by means of which it is claimed an oil will last very much longer than any known oil does at present. The new process enables high quality oil to be obtained from practically any grade of crude petroleum. The refining is carried out by means of solvents. One solvent which is introduced will act upon and remove those impurities in the oil which would impair the efficiency of the oil when working at high temperatures. Another solvent removes the substances which produce carbon deposit insido the engine. Many improvements are claimed for the now oil. Adjustments of the solvents used makes it possible to olitain good quality oil from various grades of crude oil. Tests show that it lasts a quarter as long again as the best present-day oils, and the refining process can be carried out cheaply and easily, threo engineers being able to control an output of two thousand barrels of oil per day. Added to this it makes unnecessary tho present, and sometimes dangerous, 1 sulphuric acid refining process. For at present petroleum and kerosene have the impurities which they contain removed by means of this chemical, sulphur being the most important purity. A distilling process is used to obtain the gasolene and kerosene from the crude oil. Huge containers of crude oil are heated at a steadily rising temperature. At about 200 degrees some of the gasolene product is distilled off and this continues until a temperature of about four hundred degrees is reached, ordinary gasolene being obtained by a mixture of that distilled off at the low tomporature and that removed at the high temperature.