Doctor sweetening process

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The Doctor Sweetening Process is a chemical process in industry[citation needed]. Certain fractions of petrol have an offensive odor due to the presence of sulfur compounds like mercaptans, which may cause the petrol to be dark in color and it is called sour gasoline. Presence of those compounds will reduce the quality of petrol. Hence they should be removed. It is removed by a process called Doctor Sweetening Process.

(sour gasoline) 2RSH + Na 2PbO2+S in the presence of NaOH---- R-S-S-R + PbS + 2NaOH (alkyl disulfide)


Techniques to increase the quality of petrol:

  • Higher octane number equals better fuel.
  • Octane number can be increased by cracking reaction, by alkylation reaction, by isomerisation reaction, by adding aromatic compounds (such as Benzene, Toluene or Xylene).