Economically and Environmentally Sustainable Enhanced Oil Recovery. M. R. Islam

for various medical purposes. Even during the 1800s, arsenic remained in use for medical purposes in treating leukemia, psoriasis, and asthma. Of interest is the fact that the Fowler’s solution was not withdrawn from the US market until the 1950s. Meanwhile, Erlich and Bertheim produced nearly 1000 compounds of arsenic to be used in the treatment of syphilis; the use of such compounds was not curtailed until after the advent of penicillin in 1943. The arsenic-containing drug melarsoprol (Mel B) is still the drug of choice for treating African trypanosomiasis at the meningoencephalitic stage 1, 2, 3, 4. Note that commercial use of electricity began in 1870s. Although it is unknown among New scientists, the use of electricity for thermal alteration renders a process unsustainable. In the meantime, while natural penicillin was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, mass production was possible only after synthetic version of penicillin was created. This transformation from natural penicillin to Benzylpenicillin (C₁₆H₁₈N₂O₄S) first took place in 1942 (Fischer and Ganellin, 2006). This transition from natural to artificial is symbolic of what has happened in sustainability considerations, natural being sustainable while artificial (or synthetic) being unsustainable.

Arsenic may occur in an inorganic or an organic form. The inorganic arsenic compounds include the arsenites, the arsenates, and elemental arsenic. The organic arsenic compounds include arsine and its organic derivatives. In modern era, synthetic or inorganic arsenic has been the only one used for commercial applications. In all these applications, arsenic is never in its natural form and all the byproducts are inherently toxic to the environment. For instance, arsenic is a byproduct of the smelting process for many metal ores such as, cobalt, gold, lead, nickel, and zinc. The natural form of arsenic was used in ancient and medieval era for similar applications. It seems even in modern Europe as late as 19^th century arsenic was used in paints and dyes for clothes, paper, and wallpaper (Meharg 2003). Even then, arsenic for the production of green pigments following the synthesis in the late eighteenth century of copper arsenite was in its toxic form. These pigments were widely used in wallpapers. In damp rooms, fungi living on the wallpaper paste turned the arsenic salts into highly toxic trimethylarsine. Arsenic pigments were responsible for untold numbers of cases of chronic illness and many deaths (Meharg, 2003).

      The source of both organic and inorganic arsenicals are naturally occurring minerals, such as, arsenopyrite (FeAsS), realgar (As₄S₄) and orpiment (As₂S₃). As these erode, they react with moisture and oxygen to form arsenites and arsenates that are water soluble and consequently end up in both surface and groundwater. Some of these chemical forms and oxidation states cause acute and chronic adverse health effects, including cancer (Hughes, 2002). The metabolism involves reduction to a trivalent state and oxidative methylation to a pentavalent state. The trivalent arsenicals, including those methylated, have more potent toxic properties than the pentavalent arsenicals. The exact mechanism of the action of arsenic is not known, but several hypotheses have been proposed. What is missing in this analysis is the role of artificial chemicals. At a biochemical level, inorganic arsenic in the pentavalent state may replace phosphate in several reactions. In the trivalent state, inorganic and organic (methylated) arsenic may react with critical thiols in proteins and inhibit their activity. However, this ‘organic’ in New Science doesn’t mean that an artificial state has been avoided. As such, potential mechanisms include genotoxicity, altered DNA methylation, oxidative stress, altered cell proliferation, co-carcinogenesis, and tumor promotion cannot be tracked to artificial chemicals. A better understanding of the mechanism(s) of action of arsenic will make a more confident determination of the risks associated with exposure to this chemical.

In surface waters, these chemicals can be absorbed by algae that then convert them to arsenosugars, arsinolipids and arsenobetaine. In surface waters, these can be absorbed by algae that then convert them to arsenosugars, arsinolipids and arsenobetaine. Fish and other forms of marine life feed on these algae and concentrate the arsenic compounds. When the same arsenic compounds are absorbed by plants, similar but less complex reactions take place and further dilution occurs when they are passed on to grains.

      Figure 2.5 Shows the pathway followed by the original naturally occurring ore, containing arsenic. Most arsenic in the terrestrial environment is found in rocks and soils. Arsenic in surface and ground water is mostly a mixture of arsenite and arsenate. Although New Science designates various components in molecular form, in reality molecules are fictitious and never exist in isolation. During the pre-New Science era chemical equations were not written in molecular or atomic form, hence the words, such as ‘air’ (instead of Oxygen), ‘moisture’ (instead of H₂O) and chosen.

      Figure 2.5 Pathway followed by arsenic chemicals.

This figure shows that in order for arsenic to travel natural pathway, the entire chain of air and moisture has to be free of synthetic chemicals. In the post industrial revolution, major sources of arsenic include the combustion of coal, nonferrous metal smelting, and the burning of agricultural wastes. These are inherently toxic to the environment. Similarly, each chemical containing arsenic that has been widely used as herbicides, fungicides, wood preservatives, desiccants, cattle and sheep dips, and dyestuffs is necessarily synthetic or artificially processed. Today, arsenic continues to be widely used in agriculture, in glass and ceramics, as a metal alloy, and in semiconductors and other electronic devices – all causing irreparable harm to the environment. It is no surprise that the entire branch of toxicology deals with only artificial type of arsenic products (Hughes, 2002).

      2.2.5 Refining Techniques

      In terms of processing of petroleum crude, Al-Rāzī’s work is likely the oldest complete reference available today. In his Kitāb al-Asār, Al-Rāzī described two methods for the production of kerosene, termed naft abyad (white petroleum), using an apparatus called an alembic. Picture 2.1 shows this device. The complete distilling apparatus consists of three parts (Bearman et al., 2012):

      1 the “cucurbit” (Arabic, qar‘; Greek, βίκος, bikos), the still pot containing the liquid to be distilled

      2 The “head” or “cap” (Arabic, al-anbīq; from Greek ἄμβιξ, ambix, meaning `cup, beaker`) fits over the mouth of the cucurbit to receive the vapors,

      3 A downward-sloping “tube” (Greek σωλήν, sōlēn), leading to the “receiver” (Arabic, kābīlā, Greek ἄγγος, angos, or φιάλη, phialē) container.

      This set up is often reduced to one retort, used for distillation. This setup, however, uses open fire and the material used in different parts is entirely sustainable, it has no artificial material in it. The original process was used to prepare rose water.

      One method used clay as an absorbent, whereas the other method used ammonium chloride (sal ammoniac). The distillation process was repeated until most of the volatile hydrocarbon fractions had been removed and the final product was perfectly clear and safe to burn. It is not clear from the literature what was the most used source for producing kerosene, but the word naft implies a petroleum source. However, it is conceivable similar technique was used to refine olive oil, which would in fact produce gases that are beneficial to human health (Islam et al., 2010). During the same period, kerosene was also produced during the same period from oil shale and bitumen by heating the rock to extract the oil, which was then distilled.

      Picture 2.1 The refining technique used by the Alchemists.

      Similarly, Avicenna wrote volumes on plants and their uses. His instruction manual also contained refining processes. His improvement of