Petroleum

Refinery
SORAN UNIVERSITY

NAZIR MAFAKHERI

SEPTEMBER 2018

Lecture 1
Course book overview
• Useful references:
• Petroleum Refining Engineering 4th edition , Leffler, William L. PenWell 2009

• Chemical technology of petroleum by W.S.Gruese and D.R. Stevens, Mcgraw‘

Hill, 1980
• Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes, third edition, Robert A. Meyer
1996
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 1
1- Crude Oil Characteristics
• Crude Oil Composition
• Distillation Curves
• Fractions
• Cutting Crudes
• Gravities
• Sulfur Content
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 2
• 2- Distilling
• The Simple Still
• The Distilling Column
• Reflux and Reboiling
• Cut Points
• Setting Cut Points
• Variations
• Desalting
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 3
3- Vacuum Flashing

• The Cracking Phenomenon

• Effects of Low Pressure

• Vacuum Flashing

• Adjusting the Distillation Curve

• 4- Refinery Gas Plants

• Sats Gas Plant

• Cracked Gas Plant

• Disposition

• Storage Facilities
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 4
5- Cat Cracking
• The Process
• Reaction Section
• Catalysts
• The Regenerator.
• The Fractionator
• Yields
• Process Variables
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 5
6- Alkylation
• The Chemical Reaction
• The Process
• Yields
• Process Variables
• Poly Plants
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 6 + week 7 midterm exam
7- Cat Reforming
• The History
• The Chemical Reactions
• The Hardware
• Semiregenerative Reformers
• Regeneration
• Continuous Cat Reforming
• Process Variables
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 8
8- Hydrocracking
• The Process
• The Hardware and the Reactions
9- Isomerization
• Butane Isomerization
• C5/C6 Isomerization
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 9
10- Residue Reduction
• Thermal Cracking and Visbreaking
• Coking
• Cat Cracking and Hydrocracking
• The Conundrum
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 9+10
• 11- Gasoline
• Gasoline Engines
• Vapor Pressure
• Octane Number
• Leaded Gasoline
• Petrochemical Blending Components
• Combating Smog and Ozone
• TOX, NOx, VOCs, and SOx
• Gasoline Blending: Impact on Operations
Course book overview
• CONTENTS Week 11 +12 week 13 2ndmidterm exam
12- Distillate and Residual Fuels
• Kerosene and Jet Fuel
• Heating Oil
• Automotive Diesel Fuel
• Residual Fuels
13- Hydrogen, Hydrotreating, and Sulfur Plants
• Hydrotreating
• Hydrogen Sources
• Sulfur Facilities
Assessment scheme
Assessment Description %
Week due
Type of Item Wt.
Formal End of
Final exam 60%
written exam semester
short
questions
Quiz clicker Critical 10% No limit
thinking
sheets
Solving
problems
Class activity 10% No limit
Project Tasks
Reports
Formal Midterm
20% Week 7 & 13
written exam exam
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• Crude Oil Composition
• not a single chemical compound but thousands, sometimes hundreds
of thousands, of different compounds.
• Some are as simple as CH4 (methane);
• some are as complex as C35H50. CH4 and C35H50 are the chemist’s
shorthand n for individual types of chemical compounds.
• Each of these types of compounds has its own boiling temperature, and
therein lies the most useful and used physical phenomenon in the
petroleum industry.
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
Distillation Curves
Take the same pot and
fill it with a typical
crude oil. Put the flame
under it and heat it up.
As the temperature
reaches 150ºF, the crude
oil will start to boil, as
in figure. Now keep
enough flame under the
pot to maintain the
temperature at 150ºF.
After a while, the crude
stops boiling.
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
Distillation Curves
Each type of crude oil
has a unique distillation
curve that helps
characterize
what kinds of
hydrocarbons are in
that crude. Generally
the more carbon atoms
in the compound, the
higher the boiling
temperature
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• Fractions
• To further specify the character of crude oil, the refiners have found it
• useful to collect certain compounds into specific groups called
fractions.
• Fractions or cuts are the generic names for all the compounds that boil
between two given temperatures, called cut points.
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• Fractions
• Commonly used cut points to describe the fractions in crude oil are:
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• Fractions
• Commonly used cut points to describe the fractions in crude oil are:
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• 1. For the heavy crude (the curve
that starts off higher because it
has very little light stuff in it),
start from the vertical axis at
315ºF and intersect the
distillation curve, point A 26%
on the horizontal axis
• 2. start at 450ºF and intersect the
same distillation curve, going
right, at point B, which is 42% on
the horizontal axis. That is the
amount that has boiled off when
kerosene stops boiling off.
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• 3. Calculate the cumulative
percent volume from the
initial boiling point of the
kerosene to the end point:
42% – 26% = 16%. The heavy
crude contains 16% kerosene.
• 4. Now do the same procedure
for the light crude and find
that there is 66.5% – 48.5% =
18%.
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• Gravities
• Gravities measure the weight of a compound, another important
characteristic. Chemists always use a measure called specific gravity,
which relates everything to something universally familiar, water.
CRUDE OIL CHARACTERISTICS
• Sulfur Content
• One of the annoying aspects nature endowed on crude oils is the
differing amounts of sulfur content in various types of crude oil.
• It is chemically bonded to some of the more complicated hydrocarbon
molecules so that it is not easily separated from the pure carbon
compounds. That is, not until it is burned.
• Then it will form one of several smelly or otherwise environmentally
objectionable sulfur/ oxygen compounds.
Exercises
a) Draw the distillation
curve for the following
crude oils (on the same
graph).
b) How much naphtha
(220ºF–315ºF) is there in
each crude?