Sour petroleum

M-iscellaneousFxtractions. Additional extractive separations using sulfolane involve (/) mercaptans and sulfides from sour petroleum (45) (2) /-butylstyrene from /-butylethjlbenzene (46) (J) mixtures of close boiling chlorosHanes (47) and (4) aromatics from kerosene (48—50), naphtha (49,51—53), and aviation turbine fuel (54). 

Table III shows elemental composition of typical sour petroleum, coal syncrudes or shale oils. Compared with typical sour petroleum, the coal syncrude is lower in sulfur content but significantly higher in nitrogen. Compared with shale oil, coal syncrude is lower boiling and contains only about one half the nitrogen. A major difference between the two liquids is the highly aromatic structure of coal liquids and the absence of long paraffinic structures. Shale oil is more aromatic than petroleum but significantly less aromatic than coal liquids. This is mirrored by the hydrogen contents which were shown in Table I.

Apart from the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, other major producers of sulfur are the U.S.S.R., Poland, and France (Table I). The countries which border the Persian Gulf have enormous reserves of sulfur in their deposits of sour petroleum and sour natural gas. Up to now these re-... 

On the other hand, a growing supply of sulfur is now obtained from sour natural gas and sour petroleum as recovered sulfur. Either existing hydrogen sulfide is carefully oxidized into sulfur or hydrogen gas is used to convert the sulfur in petroleum into hydrogen sulfide, which is then carefully oxidized to sulfur under controlled conditions. This source of supply for sulfur has been growing faster than Frasch-produced sulfur and is now the largest sulfur source in the world. 

Environmental. Sweet petroleum is often more desirable than sour petroleum as its use will cause far less impact on the environment in the form of harmful emissions as it is burned. 

Other components in the feed gas may react with and degrade the amine solution. Many of these latter reactions can be reversed by appHcation of heat, as in a reclaimer. Some reaction products cannot be reclaimed, however. Thus to keep the concentration of these materials at an acceptable level, the solution must be purged and fresh amine added periodically. The principal sources of degradation products are the reactions with carbon dioxide, carbonyl sulfide, and carbon disulfide. In refineries, sour gas streams from vacuum distillation or from fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) units can contain oxygen or sulfur dioxide which form heat-stable salts with the amine solution (see Fluidization Petroleum). 

Knittel, T. 1993. Battery Site Vapor Control for Sour Oil Production Sites, Paper presented to various petroleum production companies. Westech Industrial Limited, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 

Coke produced from delayed coking is described as delayed sponge, shot, or needle coke depending on its physical structure. Shot coke is the most common when running the unit under severe conditions with sour crude residues. Needle coke is produced from selected aromatic feedstocks. Sponge coke is more porous and has a high surface area. The properties and markets for petroleum cokes have been reviewed by Dymond. Table 3-4 shows the types of petroleum cokes and their uses. ... 

Sulfur for commercial purposes is derived mainly from native elemental sulfur mined by the Frasch process. Large quantities of sulfur are also recovered from the roasting of metal sulfides and the refining of crude oil, i.e., from the sulfur by-products of purified sour natural gas and petroleum (the designation sour is generally associated with high-sulfur petroleum products). Reserves of elemental sulfur in evaporite and volcanic deposits and of sulfur associated with natural gas,... 

D. W. S. Westlake. Microbial ecology of corrosion and reservoir souring. In E. C. Donaldson, editor. Microbial enhancement of oil recovery recent advances Proceedings of the 1990International Conference on Microbial Enhancement of Oil Recovery, volume 31 of Developments in Petroleum Science, pages 257-263. Elsevier Science Ltd, 1991. 

American Petroleum Institute. "A New Correlation of NH, CC and H-S Volatility Data From Aqueous Sour Water Systems" Publication 955, American Petroleum Institute Washington, D.C., March 1978. 

Wilson, G. M. "A New Correlation of NH3, CO , and H2S Volatility Data from Aqueous Sour Water Systems", American Petroleum Institute, February 1978. 

Miles, D. H. and Wilson, G. M. "Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium Data for Design of Sour Water Strippers", Annual Report to the American Petroleum Institute for 1974, October 1975 (Data in this report are also summarized in reference 2). 

Since desalting is a closed process, there is little potential for exposure to the feedstock unless a leak or release occurs. However, whenever elevated temperatures are used when desalting sour (sulfur-containing) petroleum, hydrogen sulfide will be present. Depending on the crude feedstock and the treatment chemicals used, the wastewater will contain varying amounts of chlorides, sulfides, bicarbonates, ammonia, hydrocarbons, phenol, and suspended solids. If diatoma-ceous earth is used in filtration, exposures should be minimized or controlled. 

Petroleum distillation units generate considerable wastewater. The process water used in distillation often comes in direct contact with oil and can be highly contaminated. Both atmospheric distillation and vacuum distillation produce an oily, sour wastewater (condensed steam containing hydrogen sulfide and ammonia) from side-stripping fractionators and reflux drums. 

The petroleum industry uses them mostly as roughing devices to reduce the loading on activated sludge systems. In some cases, trickling filters are used to pretreat steam-stripped sour water before mixing it with other refinery wastewater streams for secondary treatment [48]. 

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