SUMMARY

The objective of this experiment is to determine the vapour pressure of petroleum products
and to compare the Reid Vapour pressure of different petroleum product. There are three types of
oils that used to differentiate the vapour pressure in this experiment. They are kerosene, petrol
and lubrication oil. Meanwhile, the apparatus that was used to determine the Reid Vapour
pressure was ASTM D323. This machine consist of two chambers which are the vapour chamber
(upper section) and liquid chamber (lower section), water bath and pressure gauge. The oils were
poured into three different liquid chamber. The vapour pressure apparatus will be placed in the
water bath when the temperature in the water bath reached 37.8°C. Then, take the pressure
reading when the reading is stable or 5 minutes after the vapour pressure apparatus placed. The
reading was taken every five minutes start with zero until fifteen minutes to achieve the average
pressure. Reid Vapour pressure is the method to test the measurement and volatility of crude oil
and other petroleum products. RVP is state in kilopascal. Volatility is the property of a liquid
fuel that defines evaporation characteristics where the volatility must be hight enough to avoid
vapor lock, air pollution, vaporization loses and unsafe storage and handling. The average of
RVP for diesel is 2.275kpa, 1.975kpa for kerosene and 46.7kpa for petrol. Petrol has the highest
RVP among these three petroleum products, followed by diesel and kerosene. High volatile
petroleum product can vaporize easily. That why petrol has the highest vapour pressure. (pandey
et al.2004). But, petrol has a lower viscosity. The lower the viscosity, the higher RVP reading.
As conclusion, the actual value obtained were different with expected RVP value from theory. It
is beacause the devise was worn out. Hence, do not producing an accurate result. neaxt the
petroleum product that was contaminated and influenced the result.
REFERENCE
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