Stories of Innovation: Distillation

Maud Nativel, GR5 Project Manager: How do you get from crude oil to a commercial product? I’m going to tell you straight away because it’s so fascinating!

Welcome to Stories of Innovation, a series of podcasts from TotalEnergies. In each episode, our employees explain how the innovations that have changed the world of energy came to light. Want to find out more? Let's go!

Maud Nativel: It starts with an American, this is about oil, after all. He’s called Samuel Kier and he produces salt. But guess what, Samuel had problems with a black substance that was contaminating his wells. Then one day, he saw an oil slick catch fire, which piqued his interest. By heating the oil, Samuel Kier managed to produce the perfect fuel for lamps: kerosene. You have to remember that at the time, people used whale oil for lighting, but it was expensive and hard to find. So kerosene made an excellent alternative! Samuel Kier started selling it in 1851, and then built the first oil distillation unit in Pittsburgh in 1853. In our refineries today, the distillation unit separates the crude oil into major product families to produce fuel, feedstock for the plastics industry, bitumens and much else besides. And if you’re wondering, yes we are still going to need distillation to produce biofuels, for example.

Thank you for listening to Stories of Innovation. Visit totalenergies.com to discover the origins of other innovations.