Pressure Vessels Fractionation and Distillation of Petroleum

Pressure Vessels Fractionation and Distillation of Petroleum

Oil is not only an important source of energy, but also an important raw material for chemical products (such as plastics). Scientists say that there is only a limited amount of oil on the planet and predict that by the end of the 21st century, the planet's oil resources may be exhausted. The search for new sources of energy has therefore become a major trend, including research into 'synthetic oil' or 'synthetic fuel oil' to replace virgin oil.

We are all familiar with this part of the story, but there are a number of curious questions that we would like to clarify.

1. Is it true that oil will be depleted in the near future?

2. How is oil produced?

3. petrol is derived from oil, what would cars and planes do without it, and is there a way to make petrol?

Oil fractionation

The composition of oil is roughly classified as: oily (this is its main part), gum (a viscous semi-solid substance), asphaltene (a dark brown or black brittle solid substance), and carbon (an inorganic carbonaceous substance).

Oil contains more than 300 types of hydrocarbons, some with short molecular chains and low boiling points, and some with long molecular chains and high boiling points; therefore, industry uses this difference in boiling points to fractionate oil.

In industry, the oil is first heated to between 400°C and 500°C, where it is turned into vapour and then fed into a fractionating tower. The oil vapour rises in the fractionation tower, the higher the position, the lower the temperature, and hydrocarbon gases with different boiling points condense into liquid fractions at different heights.

Gaseous fractions with short molecular chains and low boiling points will condense at the upper levels of the fractionation tower, for example

Fuel gas and liquefied petroleum gas (mainly propane and butane, which can be used as fuel or as other chemical feedstock).

Gasoline (mainly used as fuel for aircraft and vehicles).

Light oil (also known as naphtha, it is a mixture of various hydrocarbons (hydrocarbons) and is used to make alkene chemicals such as ethylene and propylene, and benzene chemicals such as toluene and xylene).

Paraffin (mainly used for aircraft and household fuel).

Gaseous fractions with long molecular chains and high boiling points which condense in the lower part of the fractionation column, e.g.

Diesel fuel (mainly used as fuel for buses, heavy vehicles and factories).

Fuel oil (mainly used as fuel for ships, factories, power plants).

Lubricating oils, wax oils, etc.

At the bottom of the fractionator, the viscous residue left behind is heavy oil (in which viscous, high molecular weight hydrocarbons are the main component, also containing gums, asphaltenes and some inorganic substances, the heavy oil can be cracked to produce some oils of small molecular weight, and the final residue is bitumen).

The different fractions are collected in the various layers, exported through conduits and separated out of the fractionation column. These fractionation products are all petrochemical raw materials from which many chemical products can be made again.

Distillation Tower is a tower-type gas-liquid contact device for distillation, using the mixture of components with different volatility, that is, at the same temperature of the components of the different vapour pressure of this nature, so that the liquid phase of the light components (low boiling material) transferred to the gas phase, and the gas phase of the recombination (high boiling material) transferred to the liquid phase, so as to achieve the purpose of separation. The Distillation Column is also an extremely widely used heat transfer device in petrochemical production.

#Pressure Vessels#Distillation Column

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