Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Converting
Oil into
Products
- Modification
- Refiners also use modification to achieve finished products
with desired properties by the rearrangement or alteration
of hydrocarbon molecules. Two important modification
processes are catalytic reforming and isomerization.
- Catalytic reforming. Catalytic reforming (also
called cat reforming) modifies naphtha into
high-octane blendstocks for gasoline
- Isomerization. This is the process used to create isomers. An isomer is a molecule or
compound that has the same number of atoms as another but has a different
arrangement of those atoms, which produces different physical and chemical
properties.
- Conversion
- Conversion is the broad term applied to processes that crack (break apart),
combine, or modify nongasoline and non–middle-distillate hydrocarbons
into motor gasoline and compounds called middle distillates
- Separation/Distillation
- In the separation state, the first issue of
concern is the removal of salts and any
remaining water from the crude oil stream.
- The incoming crude is typically first
routed to a vessel called a desalter, in
which extra water is added and the
crude/water solution is intensely
mixed and heated to about 250°F.
- After the removal of water and salt, the
crude undergoes a process called distillation.
- Combination
- The opposite of cracking is
combination—the joining together of
smaller hydrocarbon molecules to produce
larger, more valuable ones.
- Polymerization.
Polymerization puts together a
series of molecules.
- Alkylation. Like polymerization,
alkylation is used to put together
propylene and butylene (from a cracking
unit), but it uses isobutane and acidic
catalysts to produce the desired
higher-octane gasoline blendstock.
- Cracking
- Cracking is the breaking of large hydrocarbon
molecules into smaller ones. Thermal cracking
uses heat to achieve this end, while catalytic
cracking uses catalysts to do so.
- Thermal cracking
- Steam cracking. One type of thermal cracking,
steam cracking makes use of high-temperature
steam to do its work
- Coking. converts the residuals from distillation into
more-valuable gases, middle distillates, gasoline blendstock,
and naphtha, plus a by-product called coke
- Visbreaking. A second kind of thermal
cracking, visbreaking is used to reduce the
viscosity of heavy residual fuel oil.
- Catalytic cracking uses heat and pressure, but it also
employs a catalyst to either speed up the process or allow
it to occur at a lower temperature..
- BY HUMBERTO
PONCE
- Enhancement
- In general terms, enhancement is the use of selected processes to remove
unwanted elements or compounds from a hydrocarbon at some stage in the
refinery
- Hydroprocessing
- Hydroprocessing uses hydrogen to remove sulfur,
nitrogen, nickel, and vanadium from gasoline and middle
distillates.
- Amine treating
- Also sometimes called amine washing, this process
uses amine solvents to remove hydrogen sulfide, a
highly toxic gas, from oil.
- Solvent extraction
- A third common enhancement process, solvent
extraction is also known as solvent recovery. At various
stages in the refinery system, operators introduce a
solvent into a product stream to selectively remove some
component.
- Sweetening
- Sweetening is the process used to neutralize the
sulfur compound mercaptan in gasoline and other
intermediate and finished products.