Oil Processing Techniques

University:
Colorado State University
Course:
CHEM 107 | Fundamentals of Chemistry (GT-SC2)
Academic year:

2023
Views:

205

Pages:

2
Author:

Hizkia L.

Oil Processing Techniques Usually this oil content is at 3-4 km below the ground surface. For this reason, the extraction process uses drilled wells that are deliberately made. Some of them are because the source of petroleum is on the seabed, so the drilling is carried out at sea. The crude oil produced is stored in tankers or piped to tank stations or oil refineries. Crude oil or what is commonly called crude oil is in the form of a thick black liquid and has an unpleasant smell, which besides containing impurities, also contains minerals that dissolve in water. This oil cannot be used for fuel or various other purposes, but must go through processing first. This crude oil contains about 500 types of hydrocarbons with a carbon atom number of 1 – 50. In principle, petroleum processing is carried out in two steps, namely desalting and distillation. A. Desalting The desalting process is a salt removal process that is carried out by mixing crude oil with water, the aim is to dissolve mineral substances that dissolve in water. In this process acids and bases are also added with the aim of removing compounds other than hydrocarbons. After going through the desalting process, the oil will then undergo a distillation process. B. Distillation Crude oil that has gone through the desalting process is then further processed by a multilevel distillation process, which is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in boiling points. The fractions obtained from this multilevel distillation process are mixtures of hydrocarbons which boil at certain temperature intervals . The multilevel distillation process and the resulting fractions from the multilevel distillation can be described as follows. Figure 1. Fractionation tower diagram (multilevel distillation) for petroleum refining. The sectional view shows how the vapor and liquid phases are kept in constant contact with each other, so that condensation and distillation take place throughout the entire length of the column. The fractions obtained after the distillation process are then processed further with reforming, polymerization, treating, and blending processes. 1. Reformed Reforming is a way of changing shape, namely from a chain straight to branched. This process is used to improve quality gas. 2. Polymerization Polymerization is a way of combining monomers (simple molecules) into more complex molecules. 3. Treating Treating is the process of removing impurities in petroleum. 4. Blending Blending is the process of adding additives.