Thermal cracking processes Burton process

This demand led William Burton, of Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, to commercialize the first thermal cracking process in 1913. This discovery launched the rapid development of several competitive thermal cracking designs. 

By the early 1930s, thermal cracking had achieved a fairly high level of operation. Both the Dubbs (UOP) and Tube-and-Tank (Jersey Standard) Processes represented the state of the art in the field. Between the end of World War I, when the Burton Process was still revolutionary, and the early 1930s, octane ratings of gasoline increased 36 percent. This improvement resulted from the existence of more advanced thermal plants and the increasing use of additives, espe-... 

Burton The first commercial process for thermally cracking heavy petroleum fractions to obtain gasoline. Invented in 1912 by W. M. Burton at Standard Oil (Indiana) and operated commercially from 1913 through the 1920s. See also Dubbs. 

Thermal cracking or pyrolysis, the oldest of the these processes,1 was first carried out by Burton2 in his treatment of the residue remaining from the distillation of volatile components (so-called straight-run gasoline) of oil. The residue was treated in a horizontal drum by heating to 450-550°C under 5-6 atm. The volatile components were distilled off continuously until only coke remained in the still. The Burton process was supplanted by the continuous Dubbs process Operating... 

Burton process an older thermal cracking process in which oil was cracked in a pressure still and any condensation of the products of cracking also took place under pressure. 

The solution to the problem came as early as 1913, when William Burton of the Standard Oil Company (Indiana) put into operation a series of thermal cracking units known as Burton Stills, This was the beginning of a method for breaking the larger carbon molecules into smaller ones through a heat process, a process for making chemicals such as ethylene, propylene, butylene, and other olefins from crude oil. 

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