THRUST AREA - PETROCHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY

TITLE OF THE PAPER - ETHYL TERTIARY BUTYL ETHER AS A BLEND IN

GASOLINE (ETBE).

SUBMITTED BY - V.ARUNKUMAR

M.V.HIRAN

COURSE - BTECH (CHEMICAL ENGINEERING)

SEMESTER - 7th SEM (Fourth year)

NAME OF COLLEGE - PONDICHERRY ENGINEERING COLLEGE,

PUDHUCHERRY-605014.

TITLE ABSTRACT:

ETBE is an oxygenated fuel that can be blended with gasoline to make it burn more
cleanly and thus improve overall air quality. Mixing ethanol and isobutylene and reacting them with heat
over a catalyst produce ETBE. The promise of ETBE is that it eliminates many of the historical
impediments to the greater use of ethanol such as increased volatility of gasoline and incompatibility with
gasoline pipelines. This would allow ETBE to be used at the refinery level and economically transported to
areas that previously had not been able to utilize ethanol.

Many experts in the motor fuel industry believe the problem has been lack of acceptance of ethanol
by the petroleum refining industry and common carrier pipelines. The automobile manufacturers, while
they accept alcohol and gasoline blends, have done so with reservations and have expressed a strong
preference for ETBE.

The problem can be simply stated as a lack of approval of ethanol as a universally accepted blending agent
in gasoline. One solution is to convert ethanol to ETBE, a blending agent that would be manufactured at the
refinery. ETBE is water insoluble and thereby eliminates objections attributed to ethanol. This would
compliment the existing ethanol blend market while opening up new market opportunities since each gallon
of ETBE contains 42 percent ethanol.