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by Stefano Lamorgese 18 July 2015The alternative energies to fossil fuels mark, one after the other, significant technological advances; also for this reason they enjoy, in the public opinion, a lasting success of image and perspective.

However, especially in the field of transport, fuels derived from oil continue to have winning characteristics both for their very high energy concentration and for their versatility. A very solid and very rich market, that of oil, which, however, is forced to evolve significantly to keep up with its antagonists.

"Bad" oil
The problem of the oil of the third millennium is that - once the "easy" fields have been exhausted, rich in excellent quality oil and easy to refine - nowadays more and more deep and ancient deposits are exploited, large and overflowing - it is true - but full of raw material very dense, heavy, tarry. So much so that, by refining it, more and more waste products and a progressively increasing quantity of sulfur are obtained.

To eliminate sulfur, refineries must use hydrogen, which is extracted from methane, which is always available in oil fields. This process entails very high costs both from an economic and an environmental point of view: methane is broken down (which can no longer be used as fuel), large quantities of sulfur-based compounds are emitted into the atmosphere and an enormous quantity is produced. carbon dioxide, the most lethal gas for the health of our overheated atmosphere.

This is a very serious problem. Thus, from the height of its nearly 380 billion dollars in turnover, the Saudi oil company - Saudi Aramco - faces the emergency by funding research and studies that can guarantee the unique (and enormous) wealth of Riyadh a long-term prospect compatible with the changed ecological sensibilities of the market.

The news
A turning point in this field could come from MIT, the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where a group of researchers - financed by the Saudis, in fact - have identified a promising technology to extract refined fuels from crude oil without using methane. A change that could drastically reduce the costs of energy consumption in the refining process and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

"Supercritical" water
The new manufacturing process is based on the "forced" mixing of crude oil with water, a phenomenon that occurs only in extreme conditions. That is, bringing the water to the "supercritical" state (pressure of 220 atmospheres and a temperature of 375 ° C) and then mixing it with crude oil. These conditions involve a chemical reaction to separate the oils from the sulfur compounds which, when forced into the gaseous state, can be easily removed.

The idea of ​​going to get the indispensable hydrogen no longer from CH4 (methane: one carbon atom and four hydrogen), but from H2O (water: two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen), means taking two birds with one single stone. Methane that was previously "wasted" would be recovered and the CO2 emitted so far would be reduced.

The protagonists
An intuition that came to the mind of Professor Ahmed F. Ghoniem and his colleague William Green who, with their respective teams, experimented with the process and came to the conclusion that, if we manage to control the chemical-physical reactions triggered from their system, the oil industry will have discovered, almost in extremis, its Columbus egg.