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89-508: The company's roots date back to 1914, when the revolutionary Dubbs thermal cracking process created the technological foundation for today's modern refining industry. In the ensuing decades, UOP engineers generated thousands of patents, leading to important advances in process technology, profitability consultation, and equipment design. UOP was founded in 1914 to exploit the market potential of patents held by inventors Jesse A. Dubbs and his son, Carbon Petroleum (C. P.) Dubbs. Perhaps because he

178-410: A Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA). Natural resource trustees determine and quantify injuries caused to natural resources through either releases of hazardous substances or cleanup actions and then seek to restore ecosystem services to the public through conservation, restoration, and/or acquisition of equivalent habitat. Responsible parties are assessed damages for the cost of the assessment and

267-464: A Superfund site. In 1978, residents of the rural black community of Triana, Alabama were found to be contaminated with DDT and PCB , some of whom had the highest levels of DDT ever recorded in human history. The DDT was found in high levels in Indian Creek, which many residents relied on for sustenance fishing. Although this major health threat to residents of Triana was discovered in 1978,

356-516: A UOP Hydrocracker Hydrocracking is (mostly) a licensed technology due to its complexity. Typically the licensor is also the catalyst provider. Also, unit internals can often be patented by the process licensors and are designed to support specific functions of the catalyst load. Currently, the major process licensors for hydrocracking are: Outside of the industrial sector, cracking of C−C and C−H bonds are rare chemical reactions . In principle, ethane can undergo homolysis : Because C−C bond energy

445-539: A chemical or oil spill. From 2000 to 2015, Congress allocated about $ 1.26 billion of general revenue to the Superfund program each year. Consequently, less than half the number of sites were cleaned up from 2001 to 2008, compared to before. The decrease continued during the Obama administration , and since under the direction of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy Superfund cleanups decreased even more from 20 in 2009 to

534-460: A contribution action under the CERCLA. CERCLA liability has generally been judicially established as joint and several among PRPs to the government for cleanup costs (i.e., each PRP is hypothetically responsible for all costs subject to contribution), but CERCLA liability is allocable among PRPs in contribution based on comparative fault. An "orphan share" is the share of costs at a Superfund site that

623-613: A delegation from the American Sinclair Oil Corporation visited Shukhov. Sinclair Oil apparently wished to suggest that the patent of Burton and Humphreys, in use by Standard Oil, was derived from Shukhov's patent for oil cracking, as described in the Russian patent. If that could be established, it could strengthen the hand of rival American companies wishing to invalidate the Burton–Humphreys patent. In

712-459: A few months between de-cokings. "Decokes" require the furnace to be isolated from the process and then a flow of steam or a steam/air mixture is passed through the furnace coils. This decoking is essentially combustion of the carbons, converting the hard solid carbon layer to carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The catalytic cracking process involves the presence of solid acid catalysts , usually silica-alumina and zeolites . The catalysts promote

801-417: A gaseous or liquid hydrocarbon feed like naphtha , LPG or ethane is diluted with steam and briefly heated in a furnace without the presence of oxygen. Typically, the reaction temperature is very high, at around 850 °C, but the reaction is only allowed to take place very briefly. In modern cracking furnaces, the residence time is reduced to milliseconds to improve yield, resulting in gas velocities up to

890-468: A highly crystalline petroleum coke used in the production of electrodes for the steel and aluminium industries. William Merriam Burton developed one of the earliest thermal cracking processes in 1912 which operated at 700–750 °F (370–400 °C) and an absolute pressure of 90 psi (620 kPa) and was known as the Burton process . Shortly thereafter, in 1921, C.P. Dubbs , an employee of

979-673: A joint venture combining the latter's wholly owned subsidiary, UOP Inc., and the Catalyst, Adsorbents and Process Systems (CAPS) business of Union Carbide. AlliedSignal acquired Honeywell in 1999 and assumed the latter's name. In 2005, what was now known as Honeywell acquired Union Carbide's stake in UOP, making it again a wholly owned subsidiary. The reported payment to Union Carbide was $ 835 million, valuing UOP at $ 1.6 billion. The UOP Riverside research and development laboratory in McCook, Illinois

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1068-477: A lesser chance of successful listing and cleanup than areas with higher income levels. After the executive order had been put in place, there persisted a discrepancy between the demographics of the communities living near toxic waste sites and their listing as Superfund sites, which would otherwise grant them federally funded cleanup projects. Communities with both increased minority and low-income populations were found to have lowered their chances of site listing after

1157-488: A mere 8 in 2014. In November 2021, Congress reauthorized an excise tax on chemical manufacturers, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act . The new chemical excise tax is effective July 1, 2022, and is double the rate of the previous Superfund tax. The 2021 law also authorized $ 3.5 billion in emergency appropriations from the U.S. government general fund for hazardous site cleanups in

1246-641: A modern oil refinery will typically include a cat cracker , particularly at refineries in the US, due to the high demand for gasoline . The process was first used around 1942 and employs a powdered catalyst . During WWII, the Allied Forces had plentiful supplies of the materials in contrast to the Axis Forces, which suffered severe shortages of gasoline and artificial rubber. Initial process implementations were based on low activity alumina catalyst and

1335-419: A polluter could not be identified, could not or would not pay (bankruptcy or refusal), consisted of about $ 1.6 billion and then increased to $ 8.5 billion. Initially, the framework for implementing the program came from the oil and hazardous substances National Contingency Plan. The EPA published the first Hazard Ranking System in 1981, and the first National Priorities List in 1983. Implementation of

1424-472: A reactor where the catalyst particles were suspended in a rising flow of feed hydrocarbons in a fluidized bed . In newer designs, cracking takes place using a very active zeolite -based catalyst in a short-contact time vertical or upward-sloped pipe called the "riser". Pre-heated feed is sprayed into the base of the riser via feed nozzles where it contacts extremely hot fluidized catalyst at 1,230 to 1,400 °F (666 to 760 °C). The hot catalyst vaporizes

1513-412: A requirement by addressing low income populations and minority populations that have experienced disproportionate adverse health and environmental effects as a result of their programs, policies, and activities. The EPA regional offices had to apply required guidelines for its Superfund managers to take into consideration data analysis, managed public participation, and economic opportunity when considering

1602-528: A site for the NPL is intended primarily to guide the EPA in: Despite the name, the Superfund trust fund has lacked sufficient funds to clean up even a small number of the sites on the NPL. As a result, the EPA typically negotiates consent orders with PRPs to study sites and develop cleanup alternatives, subject to EPA oversight and approval of all such activities. The EPA then issues a Proposed Plans for remedial action for

1691-418: A site on which it takes public comment, after which it makes a cleanup decision in a Record of Decision (ROD). RODs are typically implemented under consent decrees by PRPs or under unilateral orders if consent cannot be reached. If a party fails to comply with such an order, it may be fined up to $ 37,500 for each day that non-compliance continues. A party that spends money to clean up a site may sue other PRPs in

1780-560: A state Superfund law and may perform NRDA either through state laws or through other federal authorities such as the Oil Pollution Act. CERCLA created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The primary goal of a Superfund cleanup is to reduce the risks to human health through a combination of cleanup, engineered controls like caps and site restrictions such as groundwater use restrictions. A secondary goal

1869-468: A very low content of sulfur and other contaminants with a goal of reducing the gasoil and naphtha range material to 10 PPM sulfur or lower. It is very common in Europe and Asia because those regions have high demand for diesel and kerosene . In the US, fluid catalytic cracking is more common because the demand for gasoline is higher. The hydrocracking process depends on the nature of the feedstock and

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1958-481: Is a catalytic cracking process assisted by the presence of added hydrogen gas. Unlike a hydrotreater , hydrocracking uses hydrogen to break C–C bonds (hydrotreatment is conducted prior to hydrocracking to protect the catalysts in a hydrocracking process). In 2010, 265 million tons of petroleum was processed with this technology. The main feedstock is vacuum gas oil, a heavy fraction of petroleum. The products of this process are saturated hydrocarbons ; depending on

2047-619: Is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program is designed to investigate and clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Sites managed under this program are referred to as Superfund sites . Of all the sites selected for possible action under this program (and there are tens of thousands across the U.S.), 1178 (as of 2024) remain on the National Priorities List (NPL) that makes them eligible for cleanup under

2136-449: Is attributable to a PRP that is either unidentifiable or insolvent. The EPA tries to treat all PRPs equitably and fairly. Budgetary cuts and constraints can make more equitable treatment of PRPs more difficult. Upon notification of a potentially hazardous waste site, the EPA conducts a Preliminary Assessment/Site Inspection (PA/SI), which involves records reviews, interviews, visual inspections, and limited field sampling. Information from

2225-439: Is not known to the general public since most applications are within refineries and petrochemical plants. However, one technology UOP helped develop is familiar to automobile owners. During the 1970s, UOP worked on pioneering a combined muffler catalytic converter . To help publicize their work they sponsored CanAm and Formula One teams. The race cars used were developed by Shadow Racing Cars . Many race fans were drawn to

2314-411: Is often pointed to as the roots of the environmental justice movement. PCBs were illegally dumped into the community and then it eventually became a PCB landfill . Community leaders pressed the state for the site to be cleaned up for an entire decade until it was finally detoxified. However, this decontamination did not return the site to its pre-1982 conditions. There has been a call for reparations to

2403-740: Is presented in a Proposed Plan for public review and comment, followed by a selected alternative in a ROD. The site then enters into a Remedial Design phase and then the Remedial Action phase. Many sites include long-term monitoring. Once the Remedial Action has been completed, reviews are required every five years, whenever hazardous substances are left onsite above levels safe for unrestricted use. As of December 9, 2021 , there were 1,322 sites listed; an additional 447 had been delisted, and 51 new sites have been proposed. Historically about 70 percent of Superfund cleanup activities have been paid for by potentially responsible party (PRPs). When

2492-576: Is so high (377 kJ/mol), this reaction is not observed under laboratory conditions. More common examples of cracking reactions involve retro- Diels–Alder reactions . Illustrative is the thermal cracking of dicyclopentadiene to produce cyclopentadiene . Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 ( CERCLA ). The program

2581-609: Is the Church Rock uranium mill spill on the Navajo Nation. It was the largest radioactive spill in the US but received a long delay in government response and cleanup after being placed as a lower priority site. Two sets of five-year cleanup plans have been put in place by US Congress, but contamination from the Church Rock incident has still not been completely cleaned up. Today, uranium contamination from mining during

2670-430: Is the principal industrial method for producing the lighter alkenes (or commonly olefins ), including ethene (or ethylene ) and propene (or propylene ). Steam cracker units are facilities in which a feedstock such as naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), ethane , propane or butane is thermally cracked through the use of steam in a bank of pyrolysis furnaces to produce lighter hydrocarbons. In steam cracking,

2759-483: Is to do. However, when boiling points are too similar, this isn't feasible. Adsorption separation might be possible. In adsorption separation, a mixture of chemicals flows past a porous solid called the adsorbent and some chemicals tend to "hang out" longer. A valid analogy is to imagine a busy street with people walking in the same direction past great places to eat. The hungriest people will tend to stop right away. The people that were pretty full will make it far down

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2848-554: Is to return the site to productive use as a business, recreation or as a natural ecosystem. Identifying the intended reuse early in the cleanup often results in faster and less expensive cleanups. EPA's Superfund Redevelopment Program provides tools and support for site redevelopment. CERCLA was enacted by Congress in 1980 in response to the threat of hazardous waste sites, typified by the Love Canal disaster in New York , and

2937-510: Is used to burn off the coke to restore catalyst activity and also provide the necessary heat for the next reaction cycle, cracking being an endothermic reaction . The "regenerated" catalyst then flows to the base of the riser, repeating the cycle. The gasoline produced in the FCC unit has an elevated octane rating but is less chemically stable compared to other gasoline components due to its olefinic profile. Olefins in gasoline are responsible for

3026-629: The Hazard Ranking System (HRS) to calculate a site score (ranging from 0 to 100) based on the actual or potential release of hazardous substances from a site. A score of 28.5 places a site on the National Priorities List, eligible for long-term, remedial action (i.e., cleanup) under the Superfund program. As of March 23, 2022 , there were 1,333 sites listed; an additional 448 had been delisted, and 43 new sites have been proposed. Superfund also authorizes natural resource trustees, which may be federal, state, and/or tribal, to perform

3115-592: The Universal Oil Products Company, developed a somewhat more advanced thermal cracking process which operated at 750–860 °F (400–460 °C) and was known as the Dubbs process . The Dubbs process was used extensively by many refineries until the early 1940s when catalytic cracking came into use. Steam cracking is a petrochemical process in which saturated hydrocarbons are broken down into smaller, often unsaturated, hydrocarbons. It

3204-578: The Valley of the Drums in Kentucky . It was recognized that funding would be difficult, since the responsible parties were not easily found, and so the Superfund was established to provide funding through a taxing mechanism on certain industries and to create a comprehensive liability framework to be able to hold a broader range of parties responsible. The initial Superfund trust fund to clean up sites where

3293-470: The speed of sound . After the cracking temperature has been reached, the gas is quickly quenched to stop the reaction in a transfer line heat exchanger or inside a quenching header using quench oil. The products produced in the reaction depend on the composition of the feed, the hydrocarbon-to-steam ratio, and on the cracking temperature and furnace residence time. Light hydrocarbon feeds such as ethane , LPGs or light naphtha give product streams rich in

3382-461: The " Shukhov cracking process ", " Burton cracking process ", "Burton–Humphreys cracking process", and "Dubbs cracking process") Vladimir Shukhov , a Russian engineer, invented and patented the first in 1891 (Russian Empire, patent no. 12926, November 7, 1891). One installation was used to a limited extent in Russia, but development was not followed up. In the first decade of the 20th century

3471-465: The 1950s. This process used very small amounts of platinum as a catalyst for the high yield of high-octane gasoline from petroleum-based feeds. In 1963 Universal Oil Products purchased a chemical plant in East Rutherford, New Jersey . The plant was used for solvent recovery operations from waste chemicals. Operations ended in 1979, and ownership of the site was retained by Honeywell. Some of

3560-507: The American engineers William Merriam Burton and Robert E. Humphreys independently developed and patented a similar process as U.S. patent 1,049,667 on June 8, 1908. Among its advantages was that both the condenser and the boiler were continuously kept under pressure. In its earlier versions it was a batch process, rather than continuous, and many patents were to follow in the US and Europe, though not all were practical. In 1924,

3649-591: The Cold War era remains throughout the Navajo Nation, posing health risks to the Navajo community. The data in the Superfund Program are available to the public. While the simple and relatively easy sites have been cleaned up, EPA is now addressing a residual number of difficult and massive sites such as large-area mining and sediment sites, which is tying up a significant amount of funding. Also, while

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3738-528: The PA/SI is used by the EPA to develop a Hazard Ranking System (HRS) score to determine the CERCLA status of the site. Sites that score high enough to be listed typically proceed to a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS). The RI includes an extensive sampling program and risk assessment that defines the nature and extent of the site contamination and risks. The FS is used to develop and evaluate various remediation alternatives. The preferred alternative

3827-828: The Sorbex family of processes. These are the major ones designed by UOP: Parex: separation of para-xylene from a mixture of xylene isomers MX Sorbex: separation of meta-xylene from a mixed of xylene isomers Molex: linear paraffins from branched and cyclic hydrocarbons Olex: olefins from paraffins Cresex: para-cresol or meta-cresol from other cresol isomers Cymex: para-cymene or meta-cymene from other cymene isomers Sarex: fructose from mixed sugars In 2008, UOP revealed its Ecofining process which takes vegetable oils , or lipids , and converts them into replacements for diesel and jet fuels. The resultant fuels from this refining process are indistinguishable from existing fossil-based petro-diesels and jet fuels. Most of UOP's work

3916-563: The Soviet Union was desperate to develop industry and earn foreign exchange. The Soviet oil industry eventually did obtain much of their technology from foreign companies, largely American ones. At about that time, fluid catalytic cracking was being explored and developed and soon replaced most of the purely thermal cracking processes in the fossil fuel processing industry. The replacement was not complete; many types of cracking, including pure thermal cracking, still are in use, depending on

4005-481: The Superfund program, the EPA and state agencies use the HRS to calculate a site score (ranging from 0 to 100) based on the actual or potential release of hazardous substances from a site through air , surface water or groundwater . A score of 28.5 places the site on the National Priorities List, making the site eligible for long-term remedial action (i.e., cleanup) under the Superfund program. Federal actions to address

4094-412: The Superfund program. Sites on the NPL are considered the most highly contaminated and undergo longer-term remedial investigation and remedial action (cleanups). The state of New Jersey , the fifth smallest state in the U.S., is the location of about ten percent of the priority Superfund sites, a disproportionate amount. The EPA seeks to identify parties responsible for hazardous substances released to

4183-428: The addition to its research staff of Professor Vladimir Ipatieff , famous Russian scientist known internationally for his work in high-pressure catalysis. His contribution in catalytic chemistry gave UOP a position of leadership in the development of catalysis as applied to petroleum processing, the first being catalytic polymerization . Vladimir Haensel, a student of Ipatieff’s, joined UOP and developed Platforming in

4272-486: The assets of UOP into a trust to support the American Chemical Society (ACS). In 1959 UOP went public and the income from that sale still provides monies to ACS to administer grants to universities worldwide. In the 1970s UOP was acquired by The Signal Companies, which merged with Allied Corporation in 1985, becoming AlliedSignal . In August 1988 Union Carbide Corporation and AlliedSignal formed

4361-439: The breaking of carbon–carbon bonds in the precursors. The rate of cracking and the end products are strongly dependent on the temperature and presence of catalysts . Cracking is the breakdown of large hydrocarbons into smaller, more useful alkanes and alkenes . Simply put, hydrocarbon cracking is the process of breaking long-chain hydrocarbons into short ones. This process requires high temperatures. More loosely, outside

4450-511: The chemical operations had contaminated adjacent soils, groundwater and waterways in the New Jersey Meadowlands . The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered cleanup of the plant site, and in 1983 EPA designated the plant as a Superfund site. Honeywell signed agreements and orders to cooperate with EPA in the cleanup operations. As of 2023, several stages of

4539-407: The cleanup have been completed. Remediation of the adjoining wetlands and plans for long-term site maintenance are pending. The Riverside facility was recognized as a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society in 1995. Distillation is the most common way to separate chemicals with different boiling points . The greater the difference in boiling points, the easier it

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4628-465: The cleanup of hazardous waste sites has been funded through taxpayers generally. Despite its name, the program suffered from under-funding, and by 2014 Superfund NPL cleanups had decreased to only 8 sites, out of over 1,200. In November 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act reauthorized an excise tax on chemical manufacturers, for ten years starting in July 2022. The EPA and state agencies use

4717-415: The cleanup of the lead-contaminated hot spots. It wasn't until 1993 that the site was declared a Superfund site, and at the time it was one of the largest ones. However, it was not until 2004 when the EPA completed the clean-up efforts and eliminated the lead pollutant sources from the site. The Afton community of Warren County, North Carolina is one of the most prominent environmental injustice cases and

4806-644: The community which has not yet been met. Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco , a historically African American community, has faced persistent environmental discrimination due to the poor remediation efforts of the San Francisco Naval Shipyard , a federally declared Superfund site. The negligence of multiple agencies to adequately clean this site has led Bayview residents to be subject to high rates of pollution and has been tied to high rates of cancer, asthma, and overall higher health hazards than other regions of San Francisco. One example

4895-427: The disproportionate health and environmental disparities that minority and low-income populations face through Executive Order 12898 required federal agencies to make environmental justice central to their programs and policies. Superfund sites have been shown to impact minority communities the most. Despite legislation specifically designed to ensure equity in Superfund listing, marginalized populations still experience

4984-521: The end of FY 2003. Since that time Superfund sites for which the PRPs could not pay have been paid for from the general fund. Under the 2021 authorization by Congress, collection of excise taxes from chemical manufacturers will resume in 2022. The Hazard Ranking System is a scoring system used to evaluate potential relative risks to public health and the environment from releases or threatened releases of hazardous wastes at uncontrolled waste sites. Under

5073-444: The environment (polluters) and either compel them to clean up the sites, or it may undertake the cleanup on its own using the Superfund (a trust fund) and seek to recover those costs from the responsible parties through settlements or other legal means. Approximately 70% of Superfund cleanup activities historically have been paid for by the potentially responsible parties (PRPs), reflecting the polluter pays principle . However, 30% of

5162-567: The event Shukhov satisfied the Americans that in principle Burton's method closely resembled his 1891 patents, though his own interest in the matter was primarily to establish that "the Russian oil industry could easily build a cracking apparatus according to any of the described systems without being accused by the Americans of borrowing for free". At that time, just a few years after the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War ,

5251-401: The executive order, while on the other hand, increases in income led to greater chances of site listing. Of the populations living within 1 mile radius of a Superfund site, 44% of those are minorities despite only being around 37% of the nation's population. As of January 2021, more than 9,000 federally subsidized properties, including ones with hundreds of dwellings, were less than a mile from

5340-401: The expense of heavier molecules which condense and are depleted of hydrogen. The actual reaction is known as homolytic fission and produces alkenes , which are the basis for the economically important production of polymers . Thermal cracking is currently used to "upgrade" very heavy fractions or to produce light fractions or distillates, burner fuel and/or petroleum coke . Two extremes of

5429-456: The federal government did not act until 5 years later after the mayor of Triana filed a class-action lawsuit in 1980. In West Dallas, Texas , a mostly African American and Latino community, a lead smelter poisoned the surrounding neighborhood, elementary school, and day cares for more than five decades. Dallas city officials were informed in 1972 that children in the proximity of the smelter were being exposed to lead contamination. The city sued

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5518-484: The feed and catalyzes the cracking reactions that break down the high-molecular weight oil into lighter components including LPG, gasoline, and diesel. The catalyst-hydrocarbon mixture flows upward through the riser for a few seconds, and then the mixture is separated via cyclones . The catalyst-free hydrocarbons are routed to a main fractionator for separation into fuel gas, LPG, gasoline, naphtha , light cycle oils used in diesel and jet fuel, and heavy fuel oil. During

5607-474: The field of petroleum chemistry, the term "cracking" is used to describe any type of splitting of molecules under the influence of heat, catalysts and solvents, such as in processes of destructive distillation or pyrolysis . Fluid catalytic cracking produces a high yield of petrol and LPG , while hydrocracking is a major source of jet fuel , diesel fuel , naphtha , and again yields LPG. Among several variants of thermal cracking methods (variously known as

5696-498: The firm. These firms were Shell Oil Company, Standard Oil Company of California, Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, The Texas Company, and N. V. de Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij. This worried oil firms that were not part of the group and it helped prompt the Justice Department to begin an investigation of this arrangement as a possible violation of antitrust laws. The oil firms placed

5785-403: The formation of carbocations , which undergo processes of rearrangement and scission of C-C bonds. Relative to thermal cracking, cat cracking proceeds at milder temperatures, which saves energy. Furthermore, by operating at lower temperatures, the yield of undesirable alkenes is diminished. Alkenes cause instability of hydrocarbon fuels. Fluid catalytic cracking is a commonly used process, and

5874-407: The formation of polymeric deposits in storage tanks , fuel ducts and injectors . The FCC LPG is an important source of C 3 –C 4 olefins and isobutane that are essential feeds for the alkylation process and the production of polymers such as polypropylene . Typical yields of a UOP Fluid Catalytic Cracker (volume, feed basis, ~23 API feedstock and 74% conversion) Hydrocracking

5963-510: The geography of toxic waste site remediation. Some environmentalists and industry lobbyists saw the Clinton administration's environmental justice policy as an improvement, but the order did not receive bipartisan support. The newly elected Republican Congress made numerous unsuccessful efforts to significantly weaken the program. The Clinton administration then adopted some industry favored reforms as policy and blocked most major changes. Until

6052-639: The immediate future. CERCLA authorizes two kinds of response actions: A potentially responsible party (PRP) is a possible polluter who may eventually be held liable under CERCLA for the contamination or misuse of a particular property or resource . Four classes of PRPs may be liable for contamination at a Superfund site: The liability scheme of CERCLA changed commercial and industrial real estate, making sellers liable for contamination from past activities, meaning they can't pass liability onto unknowing buyers without any responsibility. Buyers also have to be aware of future liabilities. The CERCLA also required

6141-444: The lead smelters in 1974, then reduced its lead regulations in 1976. It wasn't until 1981 that the EPA commissioned a study on the lead contamination in this neighborhood and found the same results that had been found a decade earlier. In 1983, the surrounding day cares had to close due to the lead exposure while the lead smelter remained operating. It was later revealed that EPA Deputy Administrator John Hernandez had deliberately stalled

6230-449: The lighter alkenes, including ethylene, propylene, and butadiene . Heavier hydrocarbon (full range and heavy naphthas as well as other refinery products) feeds give some of these, but also give products rich in aromatic hydrocarbons and hydrocarbons suitable for inclusion in gasoline or fuel oil . Typical product streams include pyrolysis gasoline (pygas) and BTX . A higher cracking temperature (also referred to as severity) favors

6319-515: The mid-1990s, most of the funding came from an excise tax on the petroleum and chemical industries, reflecting the polluter pays principle. Even though by 1995 the Superfund balance had decreased to about $ 4 billion, Congress chose not to reauthorize collection of the tax, and by 2003 the fund was empty. Since 2001, most of the funding for cleanups of hazardous waste sites has come from taxpayers. State governments pay 10 percent of cleanup costs in general, and at least 50 percent of cleanup costs if

6408-532: The nature of the feedstock and the products required to satisfy market demands. Thermal cracking remains important, for example, in producing naphtha , gas oil , and coke ; more sophisticated forms of thermal cracking have since been developed for various purposes. These include visbreaking , steam cracking , and coking . Modern high-pressure thermal cracking operates at absolute pressures of about 7,000 kPa. An overall process of disproportionation can be observed, where "light", hydrogen-rich products are formed at

6497-517: The party either cannot be found or is unable to pay for the cleanup, the Superfund law originally paid for site cleanups through an excise tax on petroleum and chemical manufacturers. The last full fiscal year (FY) in which the Department of the Treasury collected the excise tax was 1995. At the end of FY 1996, the invested trust fund balance was $ 6.0 billion. This fund was exhausted by

6586-435: The production of ethylene and benzene , whereas lower severity produces higher amounts of propylene , C4-hydrocarbons and liquid products. The process also results in the slow deposition of coke , a form of carbon , on the reactor walls. Since coke degrades the efficiency of the reactor, great care is taken to design reaction conditions to minimize its formation. Nonetheless, a steam cracking furnace can usually only run for

6675-689: The program in 1986 through an act amending CERCLA. The Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) added minimum cleanup requirements in Section 121 and required that most cleanup agreements with polluters be entered in federal court as a consent decree subject to public comment (section 122). This was to address sweetheart deals between industry and the Reagan-era EPA that Congress had discovered. In 1994 President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12898, which called for federal agencies to make achieving environmental justice

6764-483: The program in early years, during the Ronald Reagan administration , was ineffective, with only 16 of the 799 Superfund sites cleaned up and only $ 40 million of $ 700 million in recoverable funds from responsible parties collected. The mismanagement of the program under Anne Gorsuch Burford , Reagan's first chosen Administrator of the agency, led to a congressional investigation and the reauthorization of

6853-550: The reaction conditions (temperature, pressure, catalyst activity) these products range from ethane , LPG to heavier hydrocarbons consisting mostly of isoparaffins . Hydrocracking is normally facilitated by a bifunctional catalyst that is capable of rearranging and breaking hydrocarbon chains as well as adding hydrogen to aromatics and olefins to produce naphthenes and alkanes . The major products from hydrocracking are jet fuel and diesel , but low sulphur naphtha fractions and LPG are also produced. All these products have

6942-519: The relative rates of the two competing reactions, hydrogenation and cracking. Heavy aromatic feedstock is converted into lighter products under a wide range of very high pressures (1,000–2,000 psi) and fairly high temperatures (750–1,500 °F, 400–800 °C), in the presence of hydrogen and special catalysts. Indicative Isocracking (UOP VGO Hydrocracking) Yields Feedstock: Russian VGO 18.5 API, 2.28% Sulfur by wt, 0.28% Nitrogen by wt, Wax 6.5% by wt. Feedstock Distillation Curve Products from

7031-687: The restoration of ecosystem services. For the federal government, EPA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may act as natural resource trustees. The US Department of Interior keeps a list of the natural resource trustees appointed by state's governors. Federally recognized Tribes may act as trustees for natural resources, including natural resources related to Tribal subsistence, cultural uses, spiritual values, and uses that are preserved by treaties. Tribal natural resource trustees are appointed by tribal governments. Some states have their own versions of

7120-555: The revision of the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan 9605(a)(NCP). The NCP guides how to respond to releases and threatened releases of hazardous substances , pollutants, or contaminants. The NCP established the National Priorities List, which appears as Appendix B to the NCP, and serves as EPA's information and management tool. The NPL is updated periodically by federal rulemaking. The identification of

7209-424: The state operated the facility responsible for contamination. By 2013 federal funding for the program had decreased from $ 2 billion in 1999 to less than $ 1.1 billion (in constant dollars). In 2001, the EPA used funds from the Superfund program to institute the cleanup of anthrax on Capitol Hill after the 2001 anthrax attacks . It was the first time the agency dealt with a biological release rather than

7298-419: The street. Now imagine flooding the whole town with water and everyone runs out where you can collect them according to how hungry they were. In technical terms the liquid flush is called the desorbent. This type of separation was first commonly used in the laboratory to separate small test samples. UOP pioneered a method of separating large volumes of chemicals. They call the counter-current embodiment of it

7387-526: The team's innovative designs and underdog status. UOP finally achieved a goal when California adopted the catalytic converter after the UOP governmental relations rep, Donald Gazzaniga, helped push legislation through the state Senate and Assembly. Thermal cracking In petrochemistry , petroleum geology and organic chemistry , cracking is the process whereby complex organic molecules such as kerogens or long-chain hydrocarbons are broken down into simpler molecules such as light hydrocarbons, by

7476-403: The thermal cracking in terms of the product range are represented by the high-temperature process called "steam cracking" or pyrolysis (ca. 750 °C to 900 °C or higher) which produces valuable ethylene and other feedstocks for the petrochemical industry , and the milder-temperature delayed coking (ca. 500 °C) which can produce, under the right conditions, valuable needle coke ,

7565-424: The time the responsible party either cannot be found or is unable to pay for the cleanup. In these circumstances, taxpayers had been paying for the cleanup operations. Through the 1980s, most of the funding came from an excise tax on petroleum and chemical manufacturers. However, in 1995, Congress chose not to renew this tax and the burden of the cost was shifted to taxpayers in the general public. Since 2001, most of

7654-434: The trip up the riser, the cracking catalyst is "spent" by reactions which deposit coke on the catalyst and greatly reduce activity and selectivity. The "spent" catalyst is disengaged from the cracked hydrocarbon vapors and sent to a stripper where it contacts steam to remove hydrocarbons remaining in the catalyst pores. The "spent" catalyst then flows into a fluidized-bed regenerator where air (or in some cases air plus oxygen )

7743-570: Was a privately held firm known as the National Hydrocarbon Company . J. Ogden Armour provided initial seed money and kept the firm going the first years it lost money. Most of the losses were incurred during lengthy legal battles with petroleum firms that were using technology patented by Dubbs. In 1919 the firm's name became Universal Oil Products. By 1931, petroleum firms saw a possible competitive advantage to owning UOP. A consortium of firms banded together to purchase

7832-474: Was born in Pennsylvania oil country, Jesse Dubbs was enamored with the oil business. He even named his son Carbon after one of the elemental constituents of oil. Later, Carbon added the P. to make his name "euphonious," he said. People started calling him "Petroleum" for fun, and the name stuck. C. P.'s son and grandson were also named Carbon, but each had a different middle initial. When founded in 1914 it

7921-441: Was conceived in 1921 by Hiram J. Halle , the chief executive officer of Universal Oil Products (now simply UOP), as a focal point where the best and brightest scientists could create new products and provide scientific support for the oil refining industry. Between 1921 and 1955, Riverside research resulted in 8,790 U.S. and foreign patents and provided the foundation on which UOP built its success. The company benefited immensely by

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