Petroleum-based fuels are well-established products that have served industry
and consumers for more than one hundred years. However petroleum, once
considered inexhaustible, is now being depleted at a rapid rate. As the amount
of available petroleum decreases, the need for alternative technologies to
produce liquid fuels that could potentially help prolong the liquid fuels
culture and mitigate the forthcoming effects of the shortage of transportation
fuels is being sought. The dynamics are now coming into place for the
establishment of a synthetic fuels industry; the processes for recovery of raw
materials and processing options have to change to increase the efficiency of
oil production and it is up