5. Environment and process comparison

New environmental protection regulations concerning automobile exhaust gases, the greenhouse effect and volatile organic compounds in particular, will contribute increasingly to the development of alkylation. In the United States, the Clean Air Act of 1990 led to a new "reformulation" of gasolines in 1995, a measure that is currently being introduced in Europe. This reformulation contributes to the development of processes such as isomerization, MTBE addition and alkylation.

Between 1982 and 1994, alkylation in the presence of HF, which was growing at a rate of 4.7% a year, was curbed somewhat, in view of the measures that had been envisaged since the 1987 accidents at the Mobil refinery alkylation unit in California and at other units in Texas. As hydrofluoric acid is fairly volatile, clouds of this acid in aerosol form could cause damage, given its toxicity....