True Boiling Point Extended Curve of Vacuum Residue Through Molecular Distillation

Abstract

Molecular distillation is a separation process that explores high vacuum, operation at reduced temperatures, and low exposition of the material at the operating temperature. The term vacuum residue (heavy petroleum fractions) refers to the bottom of the vacuum distillation, which has an atmospheric equivalent temperature (AET) above 540°C. For the assay of the properties of petroleum and petroleum products, the use of the true boiling point (TBP) distillation analysis is accepted as a common practice; however, for heavy petroleum fractions, some difficulties appear for determination of TBP of these petroleum fractions. The objective of this work is to develop a new and a more appropriated method to extend the TBP curve to use it for characterizing vacuum residue of heavy petroleum. The falling film molecular distillator was used. The results showed that it is possible to extend the TBP curve through molecular distillation process with very good precision.