An overview of crude oil refining
Refinement of crude oil: When crude oil is extracted, after this step in the refining of crude oil, products are produced from it, which are used in products needed by humans as well as products needed by industrial and petrochemical plants.
In these production factories, after the steps of converting crude oil for the production of needed products, it is offered to the consumer market.
Crude oil refineries are built in different areas because each of them has different uses.
Some of the export refineries are built near the port and some of them are built in the closest distance to the domestic consumption center of the country.
Transportation of crude oil and products produced from it into the refinery, or from the refinery to the outside, is done in different ways:
which include small and very large oil tankers, pipelines, railways and tanker trucks.
Along with the construction of a refinery, the refinery's feeding networks and product transfer are also built after the necessary investigations.
Before 1900 AD, crude oil refining was limited to the simple distillation of oil to produce the main commercial products, i.e. kerosene and oil, and two low consumption products of that time, i.e. gasoline and diesel.
At the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of the automobile industry, there was a very rapid growth in the consumption of motor gasoline.
As a result, the refining industry underwent a great transformation to adapt to the new situation, and new refining methods were discovered and expanded to convert surplus products into motor gasoline.
In the years after the Second World War, following the rapid advancement of technology in the industries that consume petroleum products and also the rapid development of the use of these products, another major and fundamental development in the refining industry was in the field of converting heavy products into lighter products such as gasoline. and intermediate distillation products were formed.
Currently, with the reduction in the consumption of heavy products such as furnace fuel and its gradual replacement by other fuels such as gas, coal and atomic energy, the world's refining industry is facing more and more adaptation in order to convert to lighter products, and the refinery More modern ones have been given special attention.
Because the amount of each petroleum product in the crude oil product of an oil source is fixed and cannot be changed by normal distillation methods, as well as the required percentage of each petroleum product in different countries of the world depending on the type of climate, type of social and economic life. , the level of general income, etc. differs.
Various methods have been invented to convert surplus products into needed products. For example, in the United States, due to the large number of cars and the distance, motor gasoline constitutes the majority of consumer products.
While in Japan, fuel oil and intermediate distillation products are consumed much more than motor gasoline.
In general, a modern and well-equipped refinery consists of various units, each of which is briefly explained:
The crude oil entering the refinery is first converted into a number of intermediate and main products in the distillation tower under atmospheric pressure using the distillation method, which are:
Gas, light oils, heavy oils, white oil and heavier residual diesel.
These products are later refined and transformed in other units as described below, and are marketed as final products with the required specifications:
1- Gases from the distillation tower and gases obtained as a result of chemical reactions in other refining devices are converted into liquid gas (a mixture of propane and butane) in the liquid gas production unit, which is used as a main product. fuel or the production of petrochemical products.
2- The heavy oils obtained after passing through the impurity refining device, which refines sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. impurities with the help of a catalyst and under hydrogen pressure, are mixed with the product of the oils obtained from the hydrocracking device and converted into a catalytic converter. is sent
There, with the help of a platinum catalyst, under special conditions of pressure and temperature, some existing hydrocarbons are transformed into hydrocarbons with better slow-burning properties (higher octane number).
In this way, high-quality gasoline is obtained. In some older refineries, this process is done with the help of a thermal conversion device, and the resulting gasoline is relatively unstable.
3- The kerosene cut is refined and sold to the market after a stage of refining the fumes and its smelly sulfur compounds. In some cases, diesel fuel passes through a catalytic filter and its sulfur impurities are filtered with the help of a catalyst and in the vicinity of hydrogen pressure.
4- The heavier residue enters the distillation tower in a vacuum, where it turns into a number of intermediate products such as diesel, waxy black oil, crude engine oil, raw material for bitumen making, and viscosity device feed.
Diesel products, along with the diesel product obtained from the distillation tower in the atmosphere, after passing through the sulfur purification stage, become the final product.
5- The waxy black oil obtained from this distillation step can be used as feed for the hydrocracking unit (Isomax device) or it can be directed to the catalytic cracker device. This product is broken in the Isomax device with the help of catalyst and hydrogen gas and at very high pressure and temperature and turns into lighter products.
Depending on the type of catalyst and operating conditions, a large amount of gasoline or a large amount of intermediate distillation products, including white oil and gas oil, can be obtained from this stage of crude oil refining.
All products from this unit are free of any impurities and are completely stable. For this reason, white oil obtained from it can be used as jet fuel.
6- In the catalytic cracker device, black waxy oil is broken with the help of catalyst and high temperature and turns into lighter products such as gasoline and light furnace fuel.
7- Crude engine oil is used as feed for the oil factory. In this factory, after refining and separating cyclic hydrocarbons, waxy substances and unstable opacifying substances, which are done by different stages of refining.
The intermediate product of base engine oil is obtained from this oil fraction. After mixing and extraction, this product is marketed as motor oil with various additives to achieve the desired quality
Supplied.
8- Butylene (saturated hydrocarbon) produced in the heat conversion device and catalytic cracker unit, along with isobutane obtained from different gases, enters the alkylation device and there under special operational conditions and with the help of sulfuric acid catalyst, with It is combined with one another and turns into isooctane or aviation gasoline.
9- A part of the bottom of the distillation tower enters the viscosity reduction device in a vacuum. In this device, with the help of heat, a part of the heavy hydrocarbon molecules is broken, resulting in a product with a lower viscosity, and high-quality furnace fuel is prepared with the desired quality.
10-Another part of the bottom of the distillation tower enters the bitumen machine in a vacuum as a primary feed, and there, with the help of heat or oxidation, its light materials are separated and the remaining after completing the finishing steps, it turns into the required types of bitumen. will be
It should be noted that the development of the oil refining industry is the main and most important factor in the creation of petrochemical industries in the world, because with the completion and development of devices for converting heavy petroleum materials into lighter materials by heat, a new source of very important raw materials is created. It was given to petrochemical industries.
In this way, the petrochemical industry was based on the use of oil as a raw material for chemicals.
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