This patent pertains to a treatment of crude petroleum which separates some fractions containing particular classes of chemical structures from other fractions containing other classes. It makes reference to making inclusion complexes that trap and make insoluble and hence filterable certain kinds of chemical structures while leaving undisturbed in the bulk oil other structural types. Its examples use the chemical agents urea and thiourea but their use is not new and not the claimed invention. KiloMentor has written blogs about such inclusion complexes. They are in fact old.
What this inventor claims is new is the claimed discovery that certain ‘contacting agents’ accelerate and make more dependable the formation of these valuable complexes and by so doing makes their application practical.
So much for the generalities!! That is how patent lawyers talk!
The teaching that excites me is that straight chain hydrocarbon-like molecules quickly and dependably form insoluble, retrievable, filterable complexes with urea when stirred in neat acetic anhydride, neat sulfur dioxide, and ‘perhaps’ in neat furfural.
Well, KiloMentor is interested in techniques that are promising for separating very similar chemical structures by rugged cheap methods that work at scale. Well, urea, sulfur dioxide, furfural, and acetic anhydride are inexpensive and urea inclusion complexes have the ability to separate straight chains from branched chains.
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