Non-road diesel engines are significant contributors to air pollution in the United States. Recent regulations put forth by EPA and other environmental agencies have laid out stringent guidelines for engine manufacturers and fuel producers. Recent increases in oil prices and foreign energy dependency has led to a push to produce renewable fuels, which will supplement current reserves. Biodiesel is a clean-burning renewable fuel, that can be blended with petroleum diesel. It is important to understand the effect on engine performance and exhaust emissions when using biodiesel from different feedstocks. The objective of this research was to determine the relationship between engine performance and emissions and cottonseed oil biodiesel used in a diesel engine rated for 14.2 kW. When using cottonseed oil biodiesel blends, CO, hydrocarbon, NOx, and SO2 emissions decreased as compared to petroleum diesel. Carbon dioxide emissions had no definitive trend in relation to cottonseed oil biodiesel blends. Carbon monoxide emissions increased by an average 15% using B5 and by an average of 19% using B100. Hydrocarbon emissions decreased by 14% using B5 and by 26% using B100. Nitrogen oxide emissions decreased by four percent with B5, five percent with B20, and 14% with B100. Sulfur dioxide emissions decreased by an average of 86% using B100, and by 94% using B50 blended with ultra-low sulfur diesel. The difference between peak output power when using biodiesel and diesel was insignificant in blends less that B40. Peak measured power using B100 was about five percent lower than for diesel fuel. Pure cottonseed oil biodiesel achieved and maintained a peak corrected measured power of 13.1 kW at speeds of 2990, 2875, and 2800 rpm at loads of 41.3, 42.7, and 43.8 N-m. Using B5 produced a peak power of 13.6 kW at 2990 rpm and 43.9 N-m and at 2800 rpm and 46.7 N-m, while using B20 produced a peak power of 13.4 kW at 2990 rpm and 43.7 N-m. Brake-specific fuel consumption at peak measured load and torque using B100 was 1238 g/kW-h. Brake-specific fuel consumption at peak measured power and loads using B5 and B20 were 1276 and 1155 g/kW-h.

Experimental and analytical studies have been carried out to better understand the effects of additives on viscosity, density and surface tension of intermediate and heavy crude oils. The studies have been conducted for the following oil samples: San Francisco oil from Columbia with specific gravity of 28o-29o API, Duri oil with gravity of 19o-21o API, Jobo oil with gravity of 8o-9o API and San Ardo oil gravity of 11o-13o API. The additive used in all of the experiments is petroleum distillate. The experiments consist of using petroleum distillate as an additive for different samples of heavy crude oils. The experiments include making a mixture by adding petroleum distillate to oil samples and measuring surface tension, viscosity and density of pure oil samples and mixtures at different temperatures. The petroleum distillate/oil ratios are the following ratios: 1:100, 2:100, 3:100, 4:100 and 5:100. Experimental results showed that use of petroleum distillate as an additive increases API gravity and leads to reduction in viscosity and surface tension for all the samples. Results showed for all petroleum distillate/oil ratios viscosity and interfacial tension decreases with temperature. As petroleum distillate/oil ratio increases, oil viscosity and surface tension decrease more significantly at lower temperatures than at higher temperatures. After all experiments were completed an analytical correlation was done based on the experiment results to develop “mixing rules”. Using this correlation viscosity, density and surface tension of different petroleum distillate/oil mixtures were obtained (output).These had properties of pure oil and petroleum distillate, mixture ratios and temperatures at which measurement is supposed to be done (output). Using this correlation a good match was achieved. For all of the cases (viscosity, density and surface tension), correlation coefficient (R²) was more than 0.9 which proved to be optimum for a really good match.

Taiwan is located in a strategic location in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of maritime shipping. With the passage of some 400 vessels in its coastal waters, the country is regarded as one of the high risk areas of oil spill. In early 2001, the Greek MV Amorgos grounded in Kenting and caused severe damage to the local marine ecosystem. However, the law suit failed to obtain a just compensation on the loss of coral reed recovery, fishery loss and local economy. The court did not accept the data provided by the authority. Since Taiwan is not the member of the United Nations, it is difficult to process and get the compensation following the related conventions (e.g., 1969 CLC Convention and 1971 FUND Convention¡^. In this regard, this thesis examine the related issues, analyze the international and domestic cases, review the existing mechanisms and finally proposed appropriate suggestions on the mechanism improvement of oil spill compensation for Taiwan.

An understanding of the processes involved in oil spills, and how they interact to alter the composition and behavior of the oil with respect to time is essential to determine an effective oil spill response. The review of past research has shown more focus on the laboratory methods and computerized modeling schemes to estimate the formation and breaking of emulsions after an oil spill. However, relatively less effort has gone into the study of emulsions corresponding to actual field conditions. This research aims to simulate an oil spill at sea by developing a new technique to make water in oil emulsions, without disturbing the marine wildlife. Further, this research also attempts to analyze the viscosities of water in oil emulsions and determine appropriate emulsion breakers for different crude oil emulsions. The overall test design for the study includes a test apparatus for spreading and evaporation, three different crude oils, a mixing chamber to form the emulsion, and emulsion breakers. Experiments in this research attempt to gain a better understanding of the processes that occur after oil spills at sea. In particular, the rate of evaporation of different crude oils and the formation of crude oil emulsions on the sea surface have been investigated. It was observed that different crude oils behave differently when subjected to the same weathering procedure. Results indicate that the behavior of the crude oil on the sea surface, subjected to spreading, evaporation, and emulsification, can be predicted by using the new technique developed in this research. This technique can also assist the development of effective recovery equipments and materials.

Experimental and analytical studies have been carried out to better understand production mechanisms of heavy oil under steam injection with propane and petroleum distillate as steam additives. The studies have been conducted for heavy oil from San Ardo field (12oAPI, 2800 cp at 53.3oC), under current reservoir conditions. The experiments consist of injecting pure steam, steam-propane, and steampetroleum distillate into a vertical cell containing a mixture of sand, water and San Ardo oil. The injection cell (68.58 cm long with an ID of 7.376 cm) is placed inside a vacuum jacket, set at the reservoir temperature of 53.3oC. Superheated steam at 230oC is injected at 5.5 ml/min (cold-water equivalent) simultaneously with propane or a petroleum distillate slug. The cell outlet pressure is maintained at 260 psig. Six runs were performed, two runs using pure steam, two steam-propane runs using 5:100 propane:steam mass ratio, and two steam-petroleum distillate runs using 5:100 petroleum distillate:steam mass ratio. We develop a simplified analytical model that describes steam front advancement and oil production for the 1D displacement experiments. The model incorporates heat and material balance, fillup time and Darcy’s law pertaining to the injection cell. The analytical model results are compared against the experimental data to verify the validity of the model. The main results of the study are as follows. First, experimental results indicate that compared to pure steam injection, oil production was accelerated by 30% for 5:100 propane:steam injection and 38% for 5:100 petroleum distillate:steam injection respectively. Second, steam injectivity with steam-propane and steam-petroleum distillate increases to 1.4 and 1.9 times respectively, compared with pure steam injection. Third, steam front advancement and oil production data are in good agreement with results based on the new analytical model. The analytical model indicates that the oil production acceleration observed is due to oil viscosity reduction resulting from the addition of propane and petroleum distillate to the steam. Oil viscosity at the initial temperature with pure steam injection is 2281 cp, which is reduced to 261 cp with steam-propane injection and 227 cp with steam-petroleum distillate injection.

Radiation technology can economically overcome principal problems of heavy oil processing arising from heavy oil’s unfavorable physical and chemical properties. This technology promises to increase considerably yields of valuable and environmentally satisfying products of thermal cracking; to simplify complexity of refinery configuration; and to reduce energy expenses of thermal cracking. Objectives of the present study are: ● Evaluate heavy oil viscosities with respect to absorbed dose and effect of different solvents on the viscosity of irradiated crude oil by comparing selected physical properties of irradiated samples to a non-irradiated control group; ● Investigate effect of e-beam radiation on the yields of light fractions comparing yields of radiation-thermal cracking to yields of conventional thermal cracking. The viscosity was used as an indicator of the change in the molecular structure of hydrocarbons upon irradiation. We found that the irradiation of pure oil leads to the increase of the molecular weight calculated from the Riazi-Daubert correlation. Thus, irradiation up to 10 kGy resulted in a 1.64% increase in the molecular weight, 20 kGy ─ 4.35% and 30 kGy ─ 3.28%. It was found that if irradiated oil was stored for 17 days, its viscosity increased by 14% on average. The irradiation of samples with added organic solvent in the following weight percentages 10, 5, 2.5wt.% resulted in the increase in the viscosity by 3.3, 3.6 and 14.5%, respectively. The irradiation of the sample with added distilled water also resulted in an increase in the viscosity. This increase mainly happened because the thermal component was absent in the activation energy and hydrogen, produced from radiolysis of solvent and water molecules in mixture with crude oil, and was not consumed by hydrocarbon molecules and no reduction in molecular size occurred. Implementation of radiation to the thermal cracking increased yields of light fractions by 35wt.% on average compared to the process where no radiation was present. The last chapter of this thesis discusses a profitability of installation the hypothetical radiation-thermal visbreaking unit. The calculation of profitability was performed by a rate of return on investment (ROI) method. It showed that implementation of radiation-thermal processing resulted in an increase of ROI from 16 to 60%.

An experimental study has been conducted to compare the effect of steam injection and caustic steam injection in improving the recovery of San Ardo and Duri heavy oils. A 67 cm long x 7.4 cm O.D (outer diameter), steel injection cell is used in the study. Six thermocouples are placed at specific distances in the injection cell to record temperature profiles and thus the steam front velocity. The injection cell is filled with a mixture of oil, water and sand. Steam is injected at superheated conditions of 238oC with the cell outlet pressure set at 200 psig, the cell pressure similar to that found in San Ardo field. The pressure in the separators is kept at 50 psig. The separator liquid is sampled at regular intervals. The liquid is centrifuged to determine the oil and water volumes, and oil viscosity, density and recovery. Acid number measurements are made by the titration method using a pH meter and measuring the EMF values. The interfacial tensions of the oil for different concentrations of NaOH are also measured using a tensionometer. Experimental results show that for Duri oil, the addition of caustic results in an increase in recovery of oil from 52% (steam injection) to 59 % (caustic steam injection). However, caustic has little effect on San Ardo oil where oil recovery is 75% (steam injection) and 76 % (caustic steam injection). Oil production acceleration is seen with steam-caustic injection. With steam caustic injection there is also a decrease in the produced oil viscosity and density for both oils. Sodium hydroxide concentration of 1 wt % is observed to give the lowest oil-caustic interfacial tension. The acid numbers for San Ardo and Duri oil are measured as 6.2 and 3.57 respectively.

It is no doubt that 21th century is a high oil price period. It does not cause every country emphasize on itself is energy security and it increases the competition of oil resource so much, Now the threat to China energy security also includes economic development makes all the parts need the oil energy so immensely that the supply is unable to meet the demand. Till 2007, the outer oil requirement is up to 47 percent and almost half one is gotten from other countries import. And this amount will expand as time goes by. Nowadays China has to face not only high oil price but fossil fuel transportation security.This is the key point.The main point of this article is to talk about 90 percent marine transportation.China develops land transportation positively recently to decrease marine transportation.The cost of land transportation is too expensive that China can not improve their transportation structure within a short time.Therefore,all I want to describe is China government how to deal with these issues and international situations.

¡@¡@An integrated device, which can be used to detect the ferrous particle concentration and the viscosity of the lubricating oils, is designed and manufactured. These two measurement units are conducted through the theoretical analysis of the design model, and the design drawing, the manufacturing, and the assembly of the components, respectively. Finally, the experiments are conducted to detect the performance of this integrated device. ¡@¡@In the measurement unit of the ferrous particle concentration, the geometry for the poles of the magnet and the air-gap flux density are designed using the Ohm¡¦s law and the magnetic hysteresis law, so that the ferrous particles in the lubricating oils is captured by the magnetic attraction at the air gap between the poles of the magnet. The pile of ferrous particles is connected with the Hall-effect sensors into a magnetic circuit. Results show that the sensitivity of the ferrous concentration measured using the magnetic circuit in series is about 600 times that using the magnetic circuit in parallel. The error is less than 0.3 ppm under the eight repeat tests. ¡@¡@In the measurement unit of the viscosity of the lubricating oils, the piston is squeezed into the oil to measure the viscosity. Since the container is easy to clean, the precision and the repeatability can be promoted. The error is less than 5% under the eight repeat tests. ¡@¡@When these two units are integrated into a measuring device, it is found that the interference between them can be neglected, and only one analysis procedure of sample oil can measure the ferrous particle concentration and the viscosity of the lubricating oils. Hence, the user can detect the lubricating oils used in many machines using this device to understand the abnormal wear and the deterioration of the oil.

<p>During the year of 2008, the world has experienced historically high oil prices reaching an all time high of 147 USD per barrel in midsummer. The extreme volatility of what is consider the number one source of energy reopened discussions about energy sustainability and the plausible effects of an oil shock in the global economy.</p><p> </p><p>How reliable oil price is as an economic variable predicting fluctuations in GDP growth remains controversial. Several models have been developed by scholars targeting different relations between oil price and GDP growth, from its effects on stock markets to its effect to unemployment. The authors extended the model of Mork & Olson (1994)<strong> </strong>since it focuses on the consequences that an oil shock effect on GDP growth. The model is extended from 1993 to the third quarter of the year 2008 in order to draw conclusions and test crude oil prices fluctuations affect GDP growth in the modern economy.</p><p> </p><p>The U.S.A and Sweden were chosen to compare their GDP sensitiveness to oil price volatility. The reason is that the U.S.A remains as the largest economy and consumes 25% of the oil produced in the world and is the most oil dependent among developed countries according to the EIA. Sweden on the contrary energy efficient and consumes relatively less oil per capita than many developed countries, it is also believed to be one of the most progressive countries in developing and using renewable energy resources and therefore less sensitive. The bivariate results does not show a pattern of negative correlations for Sweden between GDP growth and real oil price increases, however the U.S.A showed to be more sensitive to oil price increases.</p><p> </p>