Splitter Naphtha

Sweetfrac A process for removing sulfur compounds from naphtha. The process is essentially the UOP Merox process, positioned upstream of the naphtha splitter in conventional petroleum refining. 

However for the single-column scheme, both light and heavy naphtha fractions are fed to the main column. If they are taken together as overhead liquid product, there will need to be a downstream stabilizer and a naphtha splitter to produce the gasoline streams for treatment. 

Refinery Naphtha splitter Column flooded prematurely after... 

Minh, L.Q., Husnil, Y.A., Long, N.V.D. and Lee, M. (2014) Retrofit and debottlenecking of naphtha splitter process to thermally coupled distillation sequence with a side reboiler. Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan, 47, 687-692. 

Air coolers Reaction effluent Debutanizer column overhead Fractionation column overhead Naphtha splitter overhead... 

Experienced plant operators often refer to this situation as the column s "prime point," "jugging," or "optimum point." My term for these symptoms is incipient flood. For many refinery naphtha splitters, debutanizers, or depropanizers, the incipient flood point (i.e., the capacity at which the tower works best) should be reached at 80% to 90% of the calculated flooding capacity. Many towers, however, reportedly work best at a capacity of only 60% to 70% of flood. 

Preheat Train, Heaters, Atmospheric Tower, Vacuum Tower Heaters, Compressors, Pretreater, Reactors, Flash Drums, Depropanizer, Naphtha Splitter, Absorber/Deethanizer, BTX Complex... 

Conversion units may employ a full-fledged fractionation train, with a preflash tower to remove light ends an atmospheric fractionator to separate light naphtha, heavy naphtha, middle distillates, and unconverted oil and a vacuum tower to maximize the recovery of diesel. Some hydrocrackers use the atmospheric tower to produce full-range naphtha, which is then separated into light and heavy fractions in a naphtha splitter. 

In 2004, at the B.P. Refinery in Texas City, 15 contract workers were killed and 170 seriously binrned. The relief valve opened on the top of a naphtha splitter. The relief valve did not vent to the flare, but to a blowdown stack. The blowdown stack was open to the atmosphere and drained to a sewer. This drain had a loop seal to prevent vapors from blowing into the sewer. 

In 2006 a terrible fire and explosion killed 15 people and injured 500 other contractors and employees at the BP Refinery in Texas City. The main cause of the disaster was a relief valve on a naphtha splitter that vented to the atmosphere via a blowdown stack rather than to the... 

If at all possible, the concentration of light ends in the feed, ethane through the pentanes, should be taken directly from the parent crude oil assay. In the next section which describes the whole naphtha splitter, methods will be presented for estimating the componential composition for the whole feed, including light ends. Having determined the light ends makeup of the feed, tabulate the properties and flow rates of materials to be fed to the tower. 

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