NAME : SHAH ABDUL LATIF MEMON

ROLL NO : F16PG07

ASSIGNMENT : Petroleum Refinery

Engineering
[Date]

Submitted To : Sir Muhammad Ali Memon

ATMOSPHERIC DISTILLATION PROCESS

Introduction:
Crude oil is a mixture of different compounds. These compounds all
react differently; their chemical and even physical properties are
different. These differences are precisely what allow us to distill oil,
however there is one difference that we are interested in: boiling
temperatures.
Boiling temperatures are what all even substances that have extremely
similar boiling temperatures can be accurately separated by fractional
distillation.
The components with different boiling points are known as fractions,
and the processes of separating the fractions by fractional distillation is
known as refining. It is carried out in petroleum refinery.
The products formed are used as essential fuels for domestic purpose
and industrial purpose too. They are used for many other purposes.
Some of them are used in the same form as obtained while others are
separated by further fractional distillation.
 TERMS :
There are many different terms used in this process which are very
useful. We should know these terms in order to understand the process .

Those terms are as follows;

Heating :
To boil any substance, firstly you need to heat it. The different compounds in
crude oil boil at extremely high temperatures and because of the high
amounts of potential energy stored in these compounds, it is important to
heat them consistently, safely and accurately. This is accomplished via
furnace.

PUMP AROUNDS :
These are used to maintain the temperature thorough out the column.

Also, they maintain the if the more liquid come come up at any plate.

Cooling :
As the vapor rises, it cools. The distillation column is not designed such
that it sits directly above a boiling vat of oil. This would not provide
accurate results as the heat would rise and it would continue to heat the
oil as it rose up the column. Instead, the crude oil is first fed into an
enclosed steam boiler. Vapors are then transported to the distillation
column, thereby allowing the vapors to cool predictably.

SIDE STEMS:
They are used to strip out lighter components(if some lighter components
come up with kerosene).

Condensing :
The Substances with lower boiling temperatures rise higher within the
column. This is because the vapors cool as they rise and condense or
turn into liquids. The substances that switch between liquid and gas
states at high temperatures will make this transition very quickly,
 turning back into liquids at the bottom of the column. Other substances,
such as gasoline, will cool as they rise and therefore reach a much higher
height. The relationship between boiling point and column height is
inversely related: the lower the boiling point, the higher in the column it
will rise.

FRACTIONATING COLUMNS :
The substances that boil into vapor rise into a large, tall column (such as
those seen in the picture before). This is the fractional distillation column,
where all the magic takes place. There are a series of collecting plates that
are located at various heights within the column. The plates are designed to
attract certain compounds, allowing those with lower boiling temperatures
to ascend higher in the column. This maximizes the purity and volume of
substance collection.

Collection :
The collection trays trap the liquids with incredible accuracy. Often
liquids that are still very hot will be transported to tanks for further
cooling. Then it’s off to be blended, stored or chemically processed.

REFLUXERS :
They are used to condensate out heavy fractions by injecting cold reflux at
head of tower. Here they are used as Separators.
FIGURE OF ATMOSPHERIC DISTILLATION
PROCESS DISCRIPTION OF ATMOSPHERIC DISTILLATION :
 The desalted crude oil is preheated with heat exchangers with the
products from atmospheric distillation column to as high a temperature
as possible before it enters the furnace where it is heated to a suitable
temperature that gives required percentage of vaporization in the flash
zone.

Generally crude oil is heated to a temperature of about 350 to 360oC in the

furnace.The furnace effluent is flashed into a flash zone of atmospheric column
where liquid and vapors separate.
The pressure at the flash zone is set after fixing the reflux drum pressure.
As we heat the crude oil the fractions of crude oil separates at different
temperatures according to their boiling points.
 Heated crude oil enters near the bottom of the tower. The bottom is
kept hot, and the temperature gradually decreases towards the top of the
tower.
When crude oil is heated to very high temperatures a significant
proportion(50 to 60%) vaporizes into the flash zone of atmospheric tower.
 The un-vaporized crude travels down the stripping section of the tower
containing four to six plates and is stripped of any remaining low
boiling distillates by using super-heated steam(600F).
The less dense gases rise up the tower as it moves upward from the heat
source, it begins to cool down.
As compounds cool to their boiling point in the trays and the streams of
liquid are withdrawn from the tower at various heights.
 The largest h-c (which condenses at highest temperature) are collected
near the bottom of the tower.
 The smallest HC (which condenses at lowest temperature) are
captured at the top of the tower.
Vaporization of crude over and above the overhead and side stream
products is kept in the range of 3 – 6 wt.% on crude. This ensure
prevention of coking of the wash section plates and carryover of coke to
the bottom side stream product and provide fractionation between the
bottom side stream product and column bottoms.
  The liquid leaving the flash zone is steam stripped to recover the side
stream components and discharge from the column as reduced crude.
At the bottom of the stripping section, steam is injected into the column
to strip the atmospheric residue of any light hydrocarbon and to lower
the partial pressure of the hydrocarbon vapors in the flash zone. This has
the effect of lowering the boiling point of the hydrocarbons and causing
more hydrocarbons to boil and go up the column to be eventually
condensed and withdrawn as side streams.
 However, higher steam rates may be used when additional
vaporization of flash zone liquid is required at a limiting
temperature thus giving a greater over all vaporization.
To get from one level to the next the vapors are forced to bubble
through the liquid condensed in each tray.

 The side stream products are steam stripped to remove the lighter
components.

The lighter hydrocarbons are condensed in an overhead condenser and

sent to a reflux drum where gas and liquid separate.
The Pump around takes liquid out of the tower, cools it, and returns it to
a stage above the draw point. The Pump down takes the liquid out of the
tower, cools it, and returns it to the stage below the draw.
Liquid removed from the tower and then returned to it without cooling
is neither a pump around nor a pump down. The purpose of liquid
removal and return without any heat removal is to more conveniently
meter and control internal liquid in the tower.
For effective separation heat must be removed from the tower, in this case,
by the overhead condenser and several pump around streams along the tower
length. The pump around stream is a liquid withdrawn at a point below a side
stream tray that is cooled by the cold crude feed as part of the preheat
exchangers train. It is then returned to the column a few trays above the draw
tray. This pump around cooling accomplishes several tasks.
  First, the cold liquid condenses more of the rising vapors
.
 Second, heat is removed from the column at higher temperatures.
This is in addition to the heat removal from the condenser which
takes place at relatively lower temperatures, thus the thermal
efficiency of the column is improved, and the required furnace duty
is reduced.

Third, pump around streams reduce the vapor flow rate throughout
the column. Therefore, the required column is smaller than what
would otherwise be required if pump around streams where not
there. The drawback to using more pump around streams is that
they tend to reduce the fractionation because a more fractionated
liquid is mixed after cooling with a less fractionated liquid a few
trays above

.
REFRENCES :
1-
https://www.mckinseyenergyinsights.com/resources
/refinery-reference-desk/atmospheric-distillation/
2- https://www.google.com/search?
q=bubble+cap+trays+in+distillation+column&source=ln
ms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie6b3uu5zkAhUDo
VwKHZVSAgoQ_AUIESgB&biw=1280&bih=654#imgrc=J
G9CJIADxRwiVM:

3- Some Material from class noted lectures.