PETROLEUM REFINING

BY
DR. ADIL H. ALKHUZAI
2019-2020
UPGRADING (IMPROVING) PROCESSES:

COCKING
They are required to
produce new products or to
improve the properties of
the product itself.
Examples:
Coking,Visbreaking,Cracking
, etc.
COKING
The ‘‘bottom of the barrel’’ has
become more of a problem for
refiners and the market for heavy
residual fuel oils has been
decreasing.
Thus when more heavy residuals
are in the crude there is more
difficulty in economically disposing
(removing) of them.
The reduced crude bottoms (VRC) from
the vacuum tower is thermally cracked
in a Delayed Coker to produce wet gas,
coker gasoline, coker gas oil, and coke.
Coking units convert heavy feedstocks
into a solid coke and lower boiling
hydrocarbon products which are
suitable as feedstocks to other refinery
units for conversion into higher value
transportation fuels.
Types of coke

Types of Coke
The main uses of petroleum coke are
as follows:
1) Fuel.
2) Manufacture of anodes for electrolytic cell
reduction of alumina.
3) Direct use as chemical carbon source for
manufacture of elemental phosphorus, calcium
carbide, and silicon carbide.
4) Manufacture of electrodes for use in electric
furnace production of elemental phosphorus,
titanium dioxide, calcium carbide, and silicon
carbide.
5) Manufacture of graphite.
Delayed coking, fluid coking
& Flexicoking are the popular
coking processes and the
delayed coking is the most
widely one.
The delayed coking was
developed to minimize refinery
yields of residual fuel oil by
thermal cracking of stocks such
as:
1) vacuum residuals,
2) aromatic gas oils, and
3) thermal tars.
Typically, furnace outlet temperatures
range from 900–930°F (482–500°C).
The higher the outlet
temperature, the greater the
tendency to produce shot coke and
the shorter the time before the
furnace tubes have to be decoked.
Usually, furnace tubes have to be
decoked every three to five
months.
This accomplishes (achieved by) the following:
1) Hot fresh liquid feed is charged to
the fractionator two to four trays
above the bottom vapor zone.
2) The hot vapors from the coke drum
are quenched by the cooler feed
liquid thus preventing any significant
amount of coke formation in the
fractionator and simultaneously
condensing a portion of the heavy
ends which are recycled.
3) any remaining material lighter than the
desired coke drum feed is stripped
(vaporized) from the fresh liquid feed.
4) The fresh feed liquid is further
preheated making the process more
energy efficient.
5) Vapors from the top of the coke drum
return to the base of the fractionator.
These vapors consist of steam and the
products of the thermal cracking
reaction: gas, naphtha, and gas oils.
6) Above the fresh feed entry in the
fractionator there are usually two or
three additional trays below the gas oil
drawoff tray.
These trays are refluxed with partially
cooled gas oil in order to provide fine
control of the gas oil end point and to
minimize entrainment (combine) of any
fresh feed liquid or recycle liquid into
the gas oil product.
7) The gas oil side draw is a conventional
configuration employing a six- to eight-
tray stripper with steam introduced
under the bottom tray for vaporization
of light ends to control the initial boiling
point (IBP) of the gas oil.
8) Steam and vaporized light ends are
returned from the top of the gas oil
stripper to the fractionator one or two
trays above the draw tray.