Fractionating towers

Cmde oil containing about 30% asphalt can be refined completely in an atmospheric unit to an asphalt product. However, most cmde oil cannot be distilled satisfactorily to an asphalt product at atmospheric pressure because of the presence of substantial proportions of high boiling gas oil fractions. Thus, as a supplement to the atmospheric process, a second fractionating tower (a vacuum tower) is added (Fig. 1). 

A popular overall factor refinement, known as the Hand factor approach, uses a different factor to estimate overall costs for each class of equipment to cover all labor field materials, eg, piping, insulation, electrical, foundations, stmctures, and finishes and indirect costs, but not contingencies. Hand factors range from 4 for fractionating towers down to 2.5 for miscellaneous equipment. 

Rehoiler Connected to the bottom of a fractionating tower, it provides the rehod heat necessary for distillation. The heating medium maybe either steam or a hot-process fluid. 

A vital part of the process system for each of the plants includes a turboexpander-compressor set. This turbomachinery string has two main functions. The first function reduces the pressure and temperature of the incoming gas to facilitate separation of the methane. The second function raises the pressure of the methane after it leaves the fractionation tower and is transferred directly to the customers through an underground pipeline. 

Trays versus packing for fractionation can be a standoff if large numbers of tray passes are allowed for large fractionation towers by the operating company. Often, company preferences will decide. The licensor may also have preferences based on field experience. 

Historical data on similar vessels and fractionation towers can best be used by correlating the costs of this equipment vs. weight. Many methods can be found in the literature for estimating the weight and costs of vessels and fractionators (References 8. 9, 10, and 11). Make sure the estimated weight is complete including skirt, ladders and platfonns, special internals, nozzles, and manholes. 

The delayed coking feed stream of residual oils from various upstream processes is first introduced to a fractionating tower where residual lighter materials are drawn off and the heavy ends are condensed. The heavy ends are removed and heated in a furnace to about 900 to 1,000 F and then fed to an insulated vessel called a coke drum where the coke is formed. When the coke drum is filled with product, the feed is switched to an empty parallel drum. Hot vapors from the coke drums, containing cracked lighter hydrocarbon products, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia, are fed back to the fractionator where they can be treated in the sour gas treatment system or drawn off as intermediate products. 

The cracked oil vapors are then fed to a fractionation tower where the various desired fractions are separated and collected. The catalyst flows into a separate... 

In the moving-bed process, oil is heated to up to 1,300"F and is passed under pressure through the reactor where it comes into contact with a catalyst flow in the form of beads or pellets. The cracked products then flow to a fractionating tower where the various compounds are separated and collected. The catalyst is regenerated in a continuous process where deposits of coke on the catalyst are burned off. 

Steam stripping is not adequate for the bottoms purity required. More positive stripping is obtained by charging the tower bottom liquid to the reboiler. In a typical reboiler, 50% of the feed is vaporized and returned to the tower below the bottom plate. A fractionating tower equipped with a steam heated reboiler is shown... 

Before desalters came into common use, crude pipe stills were frequently equipped with flash drums to minimize salt deposition on hot surfaces. In the flash drum system, the crude is heated to about 300°F. under enough pressure to suppress vaporization. The pressure is released as the crude enters the flash drum and all of the water (along with a small amount of crude) is flashed off, leaving the salt as a suspension in the oil. The flashed vapor is recombined with the crude near the furnace outlet or in the flash zone of the fractionating tower. 

While a desalter costs more to install than the flash drum system, it has the advantage of removing up to 95% of the salt from the oil permanently. Because less salt reaches the fractionating tower in a unit equipped with a desalter, a smaller quantity of corrosion products is formed due to high temperature breakdown and hydrolysis, and the salt content of the residual fuel oil is much lower. 

Kolonnen-apparat, m. column apparattis. -turm m. fractionating tower absorption tower. Kolophan, n. colophane. 

The hot feed enters the fractionator, which normally contains 30-50 fractionation trays. Steam is introduced at the bottom of the fractionator to strip off light components. The efficiency of separation is a function of the number of theoretical plates of the fractionating tower and the reflux ratio. Reflux is provided by condensing part of the tower overhead vapors. Reflux ratio is the ratio of vapors condensing back to the still to vapors condensing out of the still (distillate). The higher the reflux ratio, the better the separation of the mixture. 

Figure 9-4. The Octol Oligomerization process for producing Os s and Ci2 s and Cis s olefins from n-butenes (1) multitubular reactor, (2) debutanizer column, (3) fractionation tower.

Fractionating towers optimal reflux ratio, heat exchange, and so forth... 

Fractional distillation of crude pine oil, 24 510 of crude sulfate turpentine, 24 476 Fractional extraction, 10 745, 759-760 Fractional factorial designs, 8 396 amount of coverage in experimental design texts compared, 8 395t commercial experimental design software compared, 8 398t Fractional velocity plots, 10 319-321 Fractionating towers, in plant layout,... 

Within the past few years the advances made in hydrocarbon thermodynamics combined wtih increased sophistication in computer software and hardware have made it quite simple for engineers to predict phase equilibria or simulate complex fractionation towers to a high degree of accuracy through software systems such as SSI s PROCESS, Monsanto s FLOWTRAN, and Chemshare s DISTILL among others. This has not beem the case for electrolyte systems. 

In the atmospheric distillation process (Figure 2.1), heated crude oil is separated in a distillation column (distillation tower, fractionating tower, atmospheric pipe still) into streams which are then purified, transformed, adapted, and treated... 

The reactor effluent is cooled and fed to the ethylene separator for recovery of unreacted gaseous ethylene. The liquid phase is filtered to remove small amounts of polymer and then treated with aqueous caustic to remove the catalyst. The dissolved light ends (C2 and C4 olefins) are separated by suitable fractionating towers in series. A portion of the ethylene is purged to remove methane and ethane, and the remaining ethylene is recycled to the compressor. The butene-1 is removed to storage. 

The and heavier olefins are then separated via a series of atmospheric and vacuum fractionation towers. Vlultiple towers or columns are required to separate the heavier olefins. Figure 21-3.)... 

The major potential pollutants from the various solvent refining subprocesses are the solvents themselves. Many of the solvents, such as phenol, glycol, and amines, can produce a high BOD. Under ideal conditions the solvents are continually recirculated with no losses to the sewer. Unfortunately, some solvent is always lost through pump seals, flange leaks, and other sources. The main source of wastewater is from the bottom of fractionation towers. Oil and solvent are the major wastewater constituents. 

In the reactor, oil vapors and catalyst are separated by a deflector device or a cyclone. A cyclone facilitates separation by enabling catalyst to collect on its walls and drop from the cyclone to the stripping section at the bottom of the reactor. The vapors exit from the reactor and flow to the FCC fractionating tower. See FIGURE 2-3. 

In the fractionating tower, the cracked oil is distilled into the following components ... 

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