Advances in biotechnology open up the possibility of going beyond current alternatives for energy supply by introducing more efficient and environmentally sound technologies. The application of biotechnology has contributed significantly and is being advanced across a variety of industries, such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, biomedical, aeronautics, and the oil and gas industry. It offers enormous potential to modernize infrastructure, increase net recovery from new and existing fields, expand the area of deepwater applications, and find solutions for unconventional hydrocarbon production.
Introduction.
Biotechnology, seen as a set of technologies focused on the production of goods and services through biological systems or their products. The discovery of various microorganisms capable of using oil, natural gas and derivatives as substrates in their metabolic processes originated the interest and research in the energy field.
Petroleum biotechnology then refers to the application of biotechnological processes or products in the different activities of the oil industry: exploration, production, refining, petrochemical and environmental.
Research and technological development in the oil industry is controlled by various
key drivers such as: the increase in the production of heavy crude, the growth in the demand for fuels, the need to increase the secondary and tertiary recovery of oil, the search for an attractive profit margin and compliance with more severe environmental regulations, the improvement of the processing of fractured crude oil, the promotion of the petrochemical branch, as well as the cleaning of soils and aquifers contaminated by oil activities.
The oil industry is then interested in biotechnology as an alternative that allows it to face the above challenges based on the great versatility of microbial metabolism and its intrinsic ability to transform complex substrates in extreme environmental conditions, for example, temperature, pressure, salinity , acidity, alkalinity and hydrophobic media. Various bioprocesses are investigated as complementary technologies in oil refining to reduce investment and process costs, as well as overcome technological barriers in oil and gas upgrading. In this context, the technological development of petroleum biotechnology, especially in biorefining, is presented.
biorefining
Crude oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons (paraffins, naphthenes and aromatics) that must be processed into higher value-added products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline, diesel, solvents, kerosene, middle distillates , residual oil and asphalt. The refining process comprises the performance of several operations
thermal and catalytic to convert the molecules of the heavy fraction into smaller molecules, called light fractions, which have a lower distillation temperature.
Sulphur, nitrogen and some metals such as nickel and vanadium are mainly concentrated in the heavy fraction of oil and have greater resistance to conventional chemical processes, reasons that make it difficult to remove them from oil products.
Oil biorefining, that is, the application of biotechnologies in its fractionation and improvement, can contribute to reducing pollution and energy consumption and obtaining better quality products. Biorefining is not a new concept, for example, British Petroleum (BP) produced single-cell protein in the 1960s as a response to the lack of demand for paraffins from the petrochemical industry.
The modern refining industry is currently seen as facing two key drivers: tightening environmental regulations and a slow but steady decline in light crude reserves. The first limits the content of sulfur compounds in fuels, as well as the emission of sulfur and nitrogen oxides. The second driver forces us to improve refining systems due to a greater supply of heavy oil, rich in asphaltenes, metals, sulfur and nitrogen that reduce the efficiency of the different processes in oil refining.
The modern refining industry is currently seen as facing two key drivers: tightening environmental regulations and a slow but steady decline in light crude reserves. The first limits the content of sulfur compounds in fuels, as well as the emission of sulfur and nitrogen oxides. The second driver forces us to improve refining systems due to a greater supply of heavy oil, rich in asphaltenes, metals, sulfur and nitrogen that reduce the efficiency of the different processes in oil refining.
Sulfur removal
Sulfur and nitrogen represent the major components of petroleum that contribute to air pollution, acid rain, infrastructure corrosion, and catalyst poisoning.
Currently, conventional and alternative technologies have made it possible to reach a sulfur content of 10 ppm in fuels, but they are generally aimed at treating loads from light oil with a lower sulfur content. However, the sulfur content in oil will increase in the coming years as a result of increased production of heavy oil and metals, which will lead refiners to face the adoption of desulfurization technology, as well as the remodeling of existing plants. Biodesulfurization represents a new technology of great impact in the desulfurization of crude oil with a great environmental impact.
Biodesulfurization with the use of enzymes
Biological desulfurization (BDS) of fuels is another alternative technology to HDS that has been known since 1930. The research carried out on BDS and biodenitrogenation (BDN) in the 1970s and 1980s did not interest the oil industry, since low-octane fuels were obtained due to the degradation of hydrocarbons by anaerobic or aerobic means [9] . These microorganisms cannot be used in petroleum processing, but are important for soil and aquifer bioremediation. The microbial selective sulfur removal pathway (4S pathway) from petroleum compounds was discovered in 1978 and opened up new opportunities for biotechnology. in the production of clean fuels because it did not significantly affect the caloric value [10].
The oil industry did not show interest at the time due to the greater flexibility of environmental regulations, the high reserves of light crude oil and the good profitability of conventional processes. However, the decade of the 90s marked a different and innovative scenario in the industries.
While specific biodesulfurization has been widely studied in recent years, there is little information on the biological removal of organonitrogen compounds from oil and derivatives without affecting their calorific value. Recently, researchers from the Institute of Gas Technology (USA) and Petrobras (Brazil) isolated and obtained by mutagenesis the Pseudomonas ayucida IGTN9m strain that uses quinoline as the only source of nitrogen without transforming the rest of the hydrocarbon.
The treatment of a heavy crude oil (shale oil) with the cellular remains of the mentioned strain eliminated 5 and 68% of the total nitrogen and quinoline, respectively Biorefining of fossil fuels will require the specific denitrogenation of other types of compounds such as pyrroles , indoles, carbazoles and acridines. For example, the oxidation product of carbazole by laccase from C. gallica condenses and polymerizes in a 15% aqueous solution of acetonitrile [49]. This fact allowed us to glimpse the use of these enzymes in the denitrogenation of petroleum products.
Conclusion
The exploitation of crude oil from heavy sources implies the application of new technologies in refining processes that are friendly to the environment, such as understanding the biological mechanisms that intervene in biodesulfurization, biodenitrogenation and oil improvement, which will allow the design and produce specific catalysts of high activity and robustness.
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