Unit - II

Fuels & Combustion

Liquid Fuels
 Fractional distillation

 Distillation is the process of separation on a

molecular basis or we can say on the basis of the
boiling points of various factions.

 The crude oil is first heated to a temperature of

about 300 to 350 oC in a tube heater which
evaporate most of the crude oil.

 These vapours are then condenser in a tall

cylindrical Tower approximately 1.5 to 2 m in
diameter and 25 to 30 m height.

 This Tower is known as the fractionating coulmn.

 Fractional distillation

 The oil pressure in the heater is kept around 3

kg/cm2.

 The hot crude oil enter the fractionating column as a

Mist or spray at its lower end.

 The resulting vapour then rises through the vertical

column.

 As the gases rise through the tower, the temperature

decreases.

 As the temperature decreases, certain hydrocarbons

begin to condense and run off at different levels.
 Fractional distillation
 Each fraction that condenses off at a certain level
contains hydrocarbon molecules with a similar
number of carbon atoms.

 These boiling point 'cuts' allow several hydrocarbons

to be separated out in a single process.

 It is this cooling with the height of the tower that

allows for the separation.

 After this rough refinement, individual fuels may

undergo more refinement to remove any
contaminants or undesirable substances, or to
improve the quality of the fuel through cracking.
 Cracking

 In petroleum refining, Cracking is an important

process.

 In this process heavy hydrocarbon molecules are

broken up into lighter molecules by means of heat
and usually pressure and sometimes catalysts.

 In layman terms it is the breaking of long chain

hydrocarbons (Heavy Hydrocarbons) producing
lighter products and gases.

 Catalysts used for cracking contains aluminium

oxide and silicon oxide.
 Cracking

 The cracking process is of two types thermal

cracking and catalyst cracking.

 In thermal cracking that residue of straight run

distillation is first heated and compressed to a
pressure about 70 kg/cm2.

 Then it is sent to our react reaction chamber where

its temperature is increased to about 540 oC.

 The crack product are send to a fractionating

column similar to the primary column.
 Cracking
 Catalytic cracking process can be carried out at a
low temperature and pressure in the presence of a
catalyst.

 This process gives an extra yield of gasoline.

 The catalyst used are aluminium silicate, sulfuric

acid, hydrochloric acid and anhydrous aluminium
chloride etc.

 Solid catalyst may be mixed with liquid crude or kept

in a reaction chamber in the form of pallet or balls.

 Catalytic cracking may be done in series of thermal

cracking.
 Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU)
 In the refining process, the atmospheric distillation
unit (ADU) separates the lighter hydrocarbons from
the heavier oils based on boiling point.

 The ADU is capable of boiling crude oil fractions to

temperatures of 400 oC.

 Above this temperature, the oil will thermally crack,

or break apart, which obstructs the distillation
process.

 As lighter products are boiled off, the heavier oils,

called bottoms, remain at the bottom of the ADU.
 Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU)
 To increase the production of high-value petroleum
products, these bottoms are run through a vacuum
distillation column to further refine them.

 As the name vacuum distillation implies, the

distillation column is under a vacuum, or significantly
less than atmospheric pressure of 760 mm of Hg.

 At low pressures, the boiling point of the ADU

bottoms is low enough that lighter products can
vaporize without cracking, or degrading, the oil.
 Reforming
 The purpose of the reforming process is to change
the chemical nature of various hydrocarbon to give
the desired physical properties.

 These include thermal and catalytic reforming.

 Reforming is different from refining.

 The main difference between the refining and

reforming process is that,

 the refining is carried out on crude Residue or heavy

oils

 while the reforming is done on gasoline.

 Thermal Reforming
 Thermal reforming is similar to thermal cracking.

 The state-run gasoline is subjected to a temperature

of 500 to 600 oC and a pressure around 80 kg/cm2.

 The purpose is to produce n-paraffins of lower

molecular weight and the synthesis of desired iso-
paraffin and aromatic species.

 At the component of a state-run gasoline are already

of a lower molecular weight so they required a higher
temperature and long time for reforming.
 Catalytic Reforming
 The present requirement of gasoline is an Octane
number around 100.

 The most attractive method of achieving this

objective is catalytic reforming.

 There are many version of this process but the

dominant reaction is the dehydrogenation of
naphthenes with the production of aromatic
hydrocarbons.

 Thus benzene is produced from cyclohexane and

toluene from methyl cyclohexane.
 Hydrotreatment

 Hydrotreatment is an important step of refining

process.

 Hydrotreatment is the reaction of organic

compounds to remove impurities.

 The reaction occure in the presence of high pressure

hydrogen to remove oxygen (deoxygenation) along
with other heteroatoms (nitrogen, sulfur, and
chlorine).
 Hydrotreatment

 Hydrotreating achieves the following objectives:

 Removing impurities, such as sulphur, nitrogen and

oxygen for the control of a final product specification
or for the preparation of feed for further processing
(naphtha reformer);

 Removal of metals, usually in a separate guard

catalytic reactor when the organometallic
compounds are hydrogenated and decomposed,
resulting in metal deposition on the catalyst pores.

 Saturation of olefins and their unstable compounds

Gaseous Fuel
 Gaseous Fuel

 Gaseous fuels are obtained either naturally or by the

treatment of solid or liquid fuel.

 Among the naturally occurring gaseous fuels, natural

gas and liquefied petroleum gas are most important.

 These gases have high calorific value.

 The calorific value (CV) and specific gravity (G) of a

gaseous fuel determine the thermal output of a
heating appliance.

 Gaseous fuels have lower energy content than liquid

fuels such as, petrol or diesel.
 Gaseous Fuel

 Gaseous fuels are potentially more deserved fuel as

they produce very low greenhouse gas upon
burning.

 Hence air quality benefits are obtained compared to

conventional fuels, petrol and diesel products.

 Gaseous fuels occur in nature, besides being

manufactured from solid and liquid fuels.

 They have many advantages in comparison to solid

and liquid fuels.
 Advantages
 Gaseous fuels due to ease and flexibility of their
applications, possess the following advantages over
solid or liquid fuels:
 They can be conveyed easily through pipelines to
thereby eliminating manual labour in transportation.
 They have high heat contents and hence help us in
having higher temperatures.
 Their combustion can readily by controlled for change
in demand like oxidizing or reducing atmosphere,
length flame, temperature, etc.
 They are clean in use and they burn without any
shoot, or smoke and ashes.
 Disadvantages
 Gaseous fuels are always better in comparison to
solid and liquid fuels. However, they also have
disadvantageous which are following:

 Very large storage tanks are needed.

 They are highly inflammable, so chances of fire

hazards in their use is high.
Thank You