Petrochemical refineries

The compressors to be covered in this book are those using mechanical motion to effect the compression. These types of compressors are commonly used in the process and gas transport/distribution industries. A partial list of these industries includes chemical, petrochemical, refinery, pulp and paper, and utilities. A few typical applications are air separation, vapor extraction, refrigeration, steam recompression, process and plant air. 

Spent caustic solutions from petroleum refining. Petrochemical refineries use caustics to remove acidic compounds such as mercaptans from liquid petroleum streams to reduce produced odor and corrosivity as well as to meet product sulfur specifications. Spent liquid treating caustics from petroleum refineries are excluded from the definition of solid waste if they are used as a feedstock in the manufacture of napthenic and cresylic acid products. U.S. EPA believes that spent caustic, when used in this manner, is a valuable commercial feedstock in the production of these particular products, and is therefore eligible for exclusion. 

Hydrocarbons, general Calcium fluoride Aluminium Coal distillation Petrochemicals Refineries... 

Hydrogen production from petrochemical refineries wastes and its utilisation in powertrain for railway vehicles and in distributed generation of electricity. Activity leader University of Perugia. Estimated activity cost 6.9 million. 

FIGURE 1 Production of starting materials for a petrochemical refinery. 

Phenols and substituted phenols such as chlorinated phenols and related aromatic compounds are known to be usual components of industrial wastes. Some of the larger and more common sources of wastewater containing phenolic compounds are pulp and paper mills, petrochemical refineries, plastics and glue manufacturers, coke plants, food industries and leachate from municipal waste dumps (Rao et al. 2002). Many phenolic compounds are thought to be highly toxic and carcinogenic so they are considered to be priority pollutants. 

Zeolites are integral components of petrochemical refineries that produce benzene, xylene isomers, ethylbenzene and cumene. These aromatics must be high in purity for downstream conversion to polyesters and styrenic or phenolic based plastics. Catalytic processes for producing aromatics employ zeolites for isomerization, disproportionation, transalkylation, alkylation, and dealkylation. 

Hydrocarbons, general Iron and compounds SPA Calcium fluoride Iron oxide Aluminium Coal distillation Petrochemicals Refineries Aluminium refining... 

Hydrodesulfurization (HDS) is an important process in petrochemical refinery as it allows deaeasing the sulfur content in diesel fuel. Compounds such as alkylated dibenzothiophene (DBT) raise some problems in HDS. The alkyl groups, especially when located in the 4 and 6 positions of the ring (see Figure 18) make alkylated DBT resistant to classical HDS catalysts because of the methyl groups that prevent the thiophenic sulfur atom to be in contact with the active site of the catalyst. 

The following summarizes the yields estimated in this way for Paraho shale oil (in wt % ) olefins (ethylene, propylene, butadiene, 12.2 BTX, 23.5 fuels (including methane), 39.8 coke, 18.3 and hydrogen consumption (net), 0.9. No internal fuel requirements are reflected in these yields. The 36% yield to olefins and BTX could probably be increased significantly by further work, especially on steam pyrolysis to olefins. A bench mark is given in Ref. 8 for a hypothetical petrochemical refinery operated to obtain a 60% yield of BTX and olefins from petroleum. 

Acid waste from petrochemical refinery processes is, for example, worked up under reducing conditions. The acidic tar or resin is converted into coke by heating in a reducing atmosphere (furnace gas, ca. 1000°C) in a rotary tube furnace. In a variant of this process the energy is produced by the burning of coke, which is supplied to the rotary tube furnace and burnt together with the coke formed. 

Polymeric membranes, such as Air Product s PRISM membrane, have not seen use in fuel cell applications, being relegated to large-scale petrochemical, refinery, and... 

Any refinery is based upon taking a crude mixture of raw materials and producing a spectrum of desired products. It differs from a chemical plant primarily in that several products are desired—i.e., the coproduct concept. In common with the fuels refinery, the technology of the petrochemical refinery is influenced by four fundamental considerations ... 

The papers in this volume have been organized around four main topics which combine both the broad considerations of the petrochemical refinery and the specific types of processing ... 

Review of the basic chemical reactions employed in the present-day petrochemical refinery. 

Presentation of typical new processing concepts—chemical as well as physical—applicable to the petrochemical refinery of the future. 

Although the papers in this volume do not represent an exhaustive review of the petrochemical refinery concept, they do offer for the first time a status report on the general subject. Former publications have directed themselves to some specific phase, usually economic or engineering, with little attention directed to their interface with chemistry and process development. Hopefully, the papers presented here will offer a starting point for continuing development of a fascinating and most important subject on an integrated basis. 

The reason for the growing interest in the petrochemical refinery seems to be two-fold. From an oil company point of view, the sheer size of some of the newer petrochemical plants is so large that their feedstock requirements and by-product return streams tend to interfere with the usual processing to conventional fuel products in all but the largest refineries. For example, a modern billion pound per year ethylene plant... 

On the other hand the chemical companies view the petrochemical refinery as a way out of their increased dependence on refiners for large volumes of feedstreams and simultaneous reliance on the refiners for disposal of by-products. The petrochemical refinery which can convert crude oil directly into saleable chemicals represents a potential remedy for chemical companies who are concerned about their potential vulnerability in having to rely so heavily on their rival oil company competitors. 

There is little question that the petrochemical refinery can perform its function technically. Whether it can also do so economically and commercially is a complex question which is discussed later. It is possible to consider direct cracking of whole crude into olefins, but such processes —pioneered principally in Germany, France, and Japan—are as yet comparatively new and untried commercially. A more likely route to the petrochemical refinery involves integrating both conventional coil cracking for olefin manufacture and extraction of aromatics from reformed and cracked naphthas with conventional refinery units. Such a refinery would produce primarily ethylene, propylene, butadiene, and aromatics. Other variations and other chemicals are possible, but the steam cracker and the aromatics extraction unit are the backbone of most schemes. 

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