ABSTRACT
In the early days of petroleum refining, kerosene became the fraction of choice. The first refineries were essentially distillation units to isolate as much of the kerosene fraction as possible. As the feedstocks to the early stills changed in character, it became necessary to examine chemical and compositional differences between the feedstocks and attempt to find some method of predicting product yields. In addition, the introduction of cracking (thermal decomposition) in some refineries emphasized the need for feedstock and product analysis. Hence, application of analytical techniques, already in use in other industries, became the means of feedstock and product evaluation in the petroleum industry.
