Oil-refinery processes

Of course, some processes do not require a reactor, e.g., some oil refinery processes. Here, the design starts with the sepauration system and moves outward to the heat exchanger network and utilities. However, the basic hierarchy prevails. 

When hydrogenation is carried out in a continuous process often so-called trickle-ttow reactors are used. Mass-tran.sfer limitations often occur. An elegant improvement is the application of extrudates with a noncircular cross section, which increa.ses the external surface without increasing the pressure drop. Trilohe and Quadrilohe shapes are generally used in oil-refinery processes and they might also be useful in fine chemicals production. 

Figure 4.12 Products and simplified product streams of oil refinery processes. The yellow color indicates processes using zeolite catalysts.

Automotive gasoline contains 150 or more different chemical compounds and the relative concentrations of the compounds vary considerably, depending on the source of crude oil, refinery process, and product specifications. Typical hydrocarbon constituents are (volume basis) alkanes (4 to 8%), alkenes (2 to 5%), isoalkanes (25 to 40%), cycloalkanes (3 to 7%), cycloalkenes (1 to 4%), and aromatics (20 to 50%). However, these proportions vary greatly. 

This term actually originated in the petrochemicals industry and is derived from the oil refinery process, where an increased number of plates in a distillation column results in a more efficient separation. 

Fluid catalytic cracking, fluid cat-cracking or FCC, is a common oil refinery process. The duty of an FCC unit is to take a heavy low value gas oil or fuel oil and convert this to higher valued liquid products, particularly gasoline blend-stock. The process also produces diesel fuel blend-stock and a gas by-product stream. The gaseous by-products are rich in olefins and in particular propylene and isobutene. Ethylene is a minor component. 

An oil refinery process effluent of relatively low toxicity being discharged into a small river. 

Let us consider further the reasons for the explosive growth of the petrochemicals industry. As indicated, oil-refinery processes such as cracking supplied key chemical intermediates—ethylene and propylene—at low prices compared with traditional methods for their preparation. In real terms these prices were more or less maintained for a considerable period. However this fector alone cannot account completely for the vast increase in the tonnage of organic chemicals produced from petroleum sources. Much of the credit may be placed with research chemists, process-development chemists and chemical engineers. Once it was realized that abundant quanties of ethylene and propylene were available, research chemists had the incentive to develop processes for the production of many other compounds. Success in the laboratory led to process development and eventually construction of manufacturing units. Chapter 12 demonstrates the versatility of the alkenes. 

Oil refinery processes [catalytic cracking, isomerization, hydrogenation (dearomatization), dehydrogenation, reforming, steam reforming, desulfurization, metal removal, hydro-oxygenation, methane activation, etherification, benzene-toluene xylene (BTX) process]... 

In life cyde assessments, the problem arises that production systems may have more than one output. For instance, mineral oil refinery processes may generate not only feedstock for polymer production but also gasoline, kerosene, heavy fuel oil, and bitumen. In the case of multi-output processes, extractions of resources and emissions have to be allocated to the different outputs. There are several ways to do so [31]. Major ways to allocate are based on physical units (in the case of refineries, for example, energy content, hydrogen content, or weight of outputs) or on monetary value (price). There may also be allocation on the basis of substitution. In the latter case, the environmental burden of a coproduct is established on the basis of another similar product. Different kinds of allocation may lead to different outcomes of life cyde inventories. The outcome of the inventory stage is a list with all extractions of resources and emissions of substances causally linked to the functional unit considered. 

In Part IV, the mechanism of the proposed solution will be presented where integration with other components within PEEE will be explained in more details. This includes integration with the modeling environment (CAPE-ModE), RCM-based maintenance management system, fault detection system, design environment, and with operation support system. Case studies are selected from continuous chemical plant i.e. HDS plant, batch chemical plant i.e. PVC, and upstream end of oil refinery process to illustrate the proposed solution. 

In this section, more details about how the different components and modules within CAPE-SAFE will work within the integrated picture of PEEE. Case studies wiU be used from different plant types i.e. continuous and batch plants, as well as oil refinery process to show the mechanism of CAPE-SAFE following some scenarios. Other scenarios will be illustrated for the integration with some components within PEEE such as fault detection system, RCM-based CMMS, and operator interface system. 

Figure 9-8 shows the simplified P ID of the oil refinery process, while the CGU representation in UML can be shown in figure 9-9. Detailed model of the oil storage CGU (CGU-Cl) is shown in figure 9-10. Generic safety procedures are defined as associated with Tank, Pump, connection point, while more specified safety procedures are specified in the level of Pump-1-1, Tank-1-1, etc. 

Gas separations currently comprise a membrane market of two hundred million euros per year. Most of this business involves a variety of applications, such as separation of H2 from gases like N2, CH4, and CO separation of CO2 or O2 from N2 H2 recovery in oil refinery processes CH4 separation from biogas removal of water vapor CO2 and H2S from natural gas (NG) and removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from air of exhaust streams. A much larger potential market lies in the separation of condensable gases, such as C3+ from H2 or CH4, and CsHg from CsHg. 

Gosh, D.P., 2007. Wet H2S Cracking Problem in Oil Refinery Processes Tri-service Corrosion Conference. 

---