Purification of an aliphatic hydrocarbon derived from petroleum

Oil contains hydrocarbons and small amounts of other compounds such as nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen and some metals, so it is not possible to establish a fixed composition of this mixture. In oil refining, there are fractions that may contain contaminants that use them directly is complicated. This study studied the acid purification of an aliphatic hydrocarbon to obtain a solvent that is applied in the coatings industry. The introduction section defined the problem related to the limited supply of solvents; In addition, rigorous control procedures to be met by the company handling solvents considered chemical precursors; consequently, the objective of this study was to obtain an alternative aliphatic solvent through a chemical process. The material and methods section, details the raw materials used: aliphatic hydrocarbon, sulphuric acid, sodium hydroxide and filtering earth. In the experimental design three treatments were made and the variation of the amount of acid was considered as a factor. In the section results and discussion, the analysis of variance was used, as a technique to validate the chosen process, being the treatment two selected as the best option, which allowed posteriori, that the solvent obtained is evaluated in two formulations of paint.

Keywords: aliphatic hydrocarbon, chemical precursor, debugging, refining, treatment.