Chapter 11 - Petroleum, Complex-Mixture Fractionation, Gas Processing, Dehydration, Hydrocarbon Absorption and Stripping: Part 2: Fractionation

Abstract

Crude oil distillation is a large energy consumer and a large waste generator, so refiners need to balance the economics of processing crude oil to viable fractions. The thermodynamics of multicomponent distillation applies to petroleum, synthetic crude oil, and other complex mixtures. Various advanced integrated and distributed distillation methods can be employed to minimize waste and thus optimize performance oil. The scale of petroleum fractionation/distillation is generally large, involving atmospheric distillation of crude oil, vacuum distillation of bottoms residue, main fractionation of gaseous effluent from catalytic cracking, and main distillation of effluent from thermal coking of various petroleum fractions. They use heavy equipment, which consumes large quantities of energy. The primary raw material for all petroleum processes is crude oil, a naturally occurring liquid produced from wells drilled into the earth. The well depth and techniques used to produce the oil vary widely around the world, as does the nature and chemical composition of the crude oil itself.