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Oil Refineries
What is a refinery?
What's distillation used for?
How does distillation work?
What is simple distillation?
What is a Separating Funnel?
How is a Separating Funnel used?
What is fractional distillation?
Chemical Engineering :: Petroleum Refinery Engineering
Sulfur content in fuels
What is a refinery?

A refinery is a factory. Just as a paper mill turns lumber into paper, a refinery takes crude oil and turns it into gasoline and hundreds of other useful products. A refinery runs twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year and requires a large number of employees to run. A refinery can occupy as much land as several hundred football fields.
List of oil refineries
Energy/Utilities
State oil refineries
What's distillation used for?
How does distillation work?
What is simple distillation?
What is a Separating Funnel?
How is a Separating Funnel used?
Fractional Distillation

What is fractional distillation?
Fractional Distillation is a separation technique that is used for liquids that dissolve in each other.

Separation process in which the volatile components (having different boiling points) of a mixture (such as crude oil) are split from one another by heating the mixture in a column and collecting and condensing the vapors drawn from different levels of the column.

Fractional distillation is used to separate the components of crude oil and to separate nitrogen and oxygen from liquid air.

Immiscible liquids are separated using a separating funnel.

The various components of crude oil have different sizes, weights and boiling temperatures; so, the first step is to separate these components. Because they have different boiling temperatures, they can be separated easily by a process called fractional distillation. The steps of fractional distillation are as follows:

1.You heat the mixture of two or more substances (liquids) with different boiling points to a high temperature. Heating is usually done with high pressure steam to temperatures of about 1112 degrees Fahrenheit / 600 degrees Celsius.

2.The mixture boils, forming vapor (gases); most substances go into the vapor phase.
v 3.The vapor enters the bottom of a long column (fractional distillation column) that is filled with trays or plates. The trays have many holes or bubble caps (like a loosened cap on a soda bottle) in them to allow the vapor to pass through. They increase the contact time between the vapor and the liquids in the column and help to collect liquids that form at various heights in the column. There is a temperature difference across the column (hot at the bottom, cool at the top).

4.The vapor rises in the column.

5.As the vapor rises through the trays in the column, it cools.

6.When a substance in the vapor reaches a height where the temperature of the column is equal to that substance's boiling point, it will condense to form a liquid. (The substance with the lowest boiling point will condense at the highest point in the column; substances with higher boiling points will condense lower in the column.).

7.The trays collect the various liquid fractions.

8.The collected liquid fractions may pass to condensers, which cool them further, and then go to storage tanks, or they may go to other areas for further chemical processing Fractional distillation is useful for separating a mixture of substances with narrow differences in boiling points, and is the most important step in the refining process.

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(Does anyone else have a better refinery?)

How does this transformation take place?

Essentially, refining breaks crude oil down into its various components, which then are selectively reconfigured into new products. All refineries perform three basic steps: separation, conversion, and treatment.

Separation:

Heavy petroleum fractions are on the bottom, light fractions are on the top. This allows the separation of the various petrochemicals. Modern separation involves piping oil through hot furnaces. The resulting liquids and vapors are discharged into distillation towers.

Inside the towers, the liquids and vapors separate into components or fractions according to weight and boiling point. The lightest fractions, including gasoline and liquid petroleum gas (LPG), vaporize and rise to the top of the tower, where they condense back to liquids. Medium weight liquids, including kerosene and diesel oil distillates, stay in the middle. (Heavier liquids, called gas oils, separate lower down, while the heaviest fractions with the highest boiling points settle at the bottom.)

Conversion:

The finishing touches occur during the final treatment. To make gasoline, Cracking and rearranging molecules adds value to the products. This is where refining's fanciest footwork takes place--where fractions from the distillation towers are transformed into streams (intermediate components) that eventually become finished products. The most widely used conversion method is called cracking because it uses heat and pressure to "crack" heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter ones. A cracking unit consists of one or more tall, thick-walled, bullet-shaped reactors and a network of furnaces, heat exchangers and other vessels.

Cracking and coking are not the only forms of conversion. Other refinery processes, instead of splitting molecules, rearrange them to add value. Alkylation's, for example, makes gasoline components by combining some of the gaseous byproducts of cracking. The process, which essentially is cracking in reverse, takes place in a series of large, horizontal vessels and tall, skinny towers that loom above other refinery structures. Reforming uses heat, moderate pressure and catalysts to turn naphtha, a light, relatively low-value fraction, into high-octane gasoline components.

Treatment:

The finishing touches occur during the final treatment. To make gasoline, refinery technicians carefully combine a variety of streams from the processing units. Among the variables that determine the blend are octane level, vapor pressure ratings and special considerations, such as whether the gasoline will be used at high altitudes.

Storage:

These liquids are stored in large tanks on a tank farm. Pipelines carry the final products from the tank farm near the refinery to other tanks all across.

All of these activities are required to make the gasoline that powers our cars, the diesel fuel that brings our food to market, and the jet fuel that flies our planes. These provide us with the energy we need to get from place to place quickly and comfortably.

Question: What are the products and uses of petroleum?

The most common products from petroleum are energy products: gasoline, heating oil, and diesel fuel. Other petroleum products are: ink, crayons, bubble gum, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, records, tires, ammonia, and heart valves.

A barrel of oil yields these refined products (percent of barrel):
47% gasoline for use in automobiles
23% heating oil and diesel fuel
18% other products, which includes petrochemical feedstock's products derived from petroleum principally for the manufacturing of chemicals, synthetic rubber and plastics
10% jet fuel
4% propane
3% asphalt

Question: Can I tell which country the gasoline at my local station comes from?

The Energy Information Administration does not collect data on the source of gasoline sold at retail outlets. Several factors make it difficult to say where gasoline at a local station originated: At a local station, a company may sell gasoline that was not produced by its own refineries.

Gasoline from different refineries, owned by different companies, is often combined for shipment by pipeline. Many companies may purchase gasoline at the same bulk terminal.

Where Does My Gasoline Come From?

America consumes over 20 million barrels (840 million gallons) of petroleum products each day, almost half of it in the form of gasoline used in over 200 million motor vehicles with combined travel over 7 billion miles per day. Gasoline is made from crude oil. Refineries break down these hydrocarbons into different products. These refined products include gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, jet fuel, liquefied petroleum gases, residual fuel oil, and many other products .

The characteristics of the gasoline produced depend on the type of crude oil that is used and the setup of the refinery at which it is produced. Gasoline characteristics are also impacted by other ingredients that may be blended into it, such as ethanol. The performance of the gasoline must meet industry standards and environmental regulations that may depend on location. South Asia, Africa, Europe, Middle East.
Precise details, coming soon.

How many oil companies are there in North America?
Shell Oil Co.,
BP America Inc.,
Chevron Corp.
ConocoPhillips.
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Distribution


From Refinery to Consumer

After crude oil is refined into gasoline and other petroleum products, the products must be distributed to consumers. The majority of gasoline is shipped first by pipeline to storage terminals near consuming areas, and then loaded into trucks for delivery to individual gas stations. Gasoline and other products are sent through shared pipelines in "batches." Since these batches are not physically separated in the pipeline, some mixing or "commingling" of products occurs. This is why the quality of the gasoline and other products must be tested as they enter and leave the pipeline to make sure they meet appropriate specifications. Whenever the product fails to meet local, state, or federal product specifications, it must be removed and trucked back to a refinery for further processing.

After shipment through the pipeline, gasoline is typically held in bulk storage terminals that often service many companies. At these terminals the gasoline is loaded into tanker trucks destined for various retail gas stations. The tanks in these trucks, which can typically hold up to 10,000 gallons, usually have several compartments, enabling them to transport different grades of gasoline or petroleum products. The truck tank is where the special additive packages of gasoline retailers get blended into the gasoline to differentiate one brand from another. In some areas, ethanol may be splash blended in the tanker to meet environmental requirements. When the tanker truck reaches a gas station, the truck operator unloads each grade of gasoline into the appropriate underground tanks at the station.

Grades and Formulations

Service stations usually sell several grades of gasoline: premium, mid-grade, and regular. These grades have different "octane ratings" which reflect the gasoline's anti-knock properties. The owner's manual for your car tells you what grade of gasoline your car needs. Most cars can run on regular gasoline, which is the cheapest.


What should be the dimensions of an oil refinery with a capacity of 200,000 barrels per day?
What will it look like?
Performance & Tracking
1. Air Pollution.
How many pounds of air pollutants (SO2, NO2, VOC, CO and particulates) are released per barrel of oil processed?
2. Toxic Pollutants.
How many pounds of SARA Section 313 Toxic Release Inventory chemicals (e.g. benzene, 1,3 butadiene, etc.) are released to the air, water and land per barrel of oil processed?
3. Greenhouse Gases.
How many pounds of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) are released per barrel of oil processed?
4. Product Pollution.
What does the refinery do to make sure that its products contribute the least amount of pollution when used by consumers? (e.g. How much sulfur is in gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc.?)
5. Impact to Health & Environment.
What does the refiner do to monitor and protect the health of employees? What does the refiner do in terms of protecting, preserving and restoring areas of environmental concern (e.g. wetlands, wildlife preserves, rain forests, waterways, etc.) near the refinery?
6. Additional Information. What other environmental performance data, which may or may not be required by regulating agencies, does the refinery provide to the public voluntarily?
Internal and External Audits
7. Internal Audits.
What incentive programs does the refiner have to encourage its' employees to make environmentally sound decisions at work and at home?
8. Supplier Audits.
What efforts does the refinery make to select crude suppliers who are environmental leaders in exploration, production and transport of crude oil?
9. Customer Audits.
What efforts does the refinery make to ensure that it's customers (chemical plants, gasoline terminals, retail gas stations) are environmental leaders in how they handle refinery products?
Customer Support
10. Customer Support.
How much information/assistance does the refinery provide to its direct customers and end users to use petroleum products in an environmentally safe way?
Next

Common process units found in a refinery

  1. Desalter unit washes out salt from the crude oil before it enters the atmospheric distillation unit.


  2. Atmospheric distillation unit distills crude oil into fractions. See continuous distillation.


  3. Vacuum distillation unit further distills residual bottoms after atmospheric distillation.


  4. Naphtha hydrotreater unit uses hydrogen to desulfurize naphtha from atmospheric distillation. Must hydrotreat the naphtha before sending to a catalytic reformer unit.


  5. Catalytic reformer unit is used to convert the naphtha-boiling range molecules into higher octane reformate (reformer product). The reformate has higher content of aromatics and cyclic hydrocarbons). An important byproduct of a reformer is hydrogen released during the catalyst reaction. The hydrogen is used either in the hydrotreaters or the hydrocracker.


  6. Distillate hydrotreater desulfurizes distillates (such as diesel) after atmospheric distillation.


  7. Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC) unit upgrades heavier fractions into lighter, more valuable products.


  8. Hydrocracker unit uses hydrogen to upgrade heavier fractions into lighter, more valuable products.


  9. Visbreaking unit upgrades heavy residual oils by thermally cracking them into lighter, more valuable reduced viscosity products.


  10. Merox unit treats LPG, kerosene or jet fuel by oxidizing mercaptans to organic disulfides.


  11. Alternative processes for removing mercaptans are known, e.g. doctor sweetening process and caustic washing.


  12. Coking units (delayed coking, fluid coker, and flexicoker) process very heavy residual oils into gasoline and diesel fuel, leaving petroleum coke as a residual product.


  13. Alkylation unit uses sulfuric acid or hydrofluoric acid to produce high-octane components for gasoline blending.


  14. Dimerization unit converts olefins into higher-octane gasoline blending components. For example, butenes can be dimerized into isooctene which may subsequently be hydrogenated to form isooctane.


  15. There are also other uses for dimerization. Gasoline produced through dimerization is highly unsaturated and very reactive. It tends spontaneously to form gums. For this reason the effluent from the dimerization need to be blended into the finished gasoline pool immediately or hydrogenated.


  16. Isomerization unit converts linear molecules to higher-octane branched molecules for blending into gasoline or feed to alkylation units.


  17. Steam reforming unit produces hydrogen for the hydrotreaters or hydrocracker.


  18. Liquified gas storage vessels store propane and similar gaseous fuels at pressure sufficient to maintain them in liquid form. These are usually spherical vessels or "bullets" (i.e., horizontal vessels with rounded ends).


  19. Storage tanks store crude oil and finished products, usually cylindrical, with some sort of vapor emission control and surrounded by an earthen berm to contain spills.


  20. Amine gas treater, Claus unit, and tail gas treatment convert hydrogen sulfide from hydrodesulfurization into elemental sulfur.


  21. Utility units such as cooling towers circulate cooling water, boiler plants generates steam, and instrument air systems include pneumatically operated control valves and an electrical substation.


  22. Wastewater collection and treating systems consist of API separators, dissolved air flotation (DAF) units and further treatment units such as an activated sludge biotreater to make water suitable for reuse or for disposal.


  23. Solvent refining units use solvent such as cresol or furfural to remove unwanted, mainly aromatics from lubricating oil stock or diesel stock.


  24. Solvent dewaxing units remove the heavy waxy constituents petrolatum from vacuum distillation products.