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• To reduce the pour point and viscosity of waxy residues used for blending with lighter
fuel oil.
Vacuum residue fed to a visbreaker can
be considered to be composed of the
following:
Aromatic
• Asphaltenes: Large polycyclic molecules hydrocarbons Resins
that are suspended in the oil in a colloidal
form.
Visbreaking
Coil Soaker
Visbreaking Visbreaking
Coil visbreaking:
( Reference- Wikipedia)
The heater outlet stream is quenched
with gas oil or fractionator bottoms to
stop the cracking reaction.
• In Coil visbreaking,Cracking process occur in a • In Soaker cracking reaction occur not in the
furnace tube. furnace but in a Soaker drum located after
the furnace.
• The higher temperatures are used in • The lower temperatures are used in Soaker
coil visbreaking. visbreaking.
PROBLEM:
PROBLEM:
• .De-coking: In this petroleum coke deposits in the tube The same will occur in the drum of a soaker
of the furnace and leads to fouling or blocking of the
visbreaker, though the lower temperatures used in
tubes.
the soaker drum leads to fouling at
a much slower rate.
Process evolution
• 1930-1940-At its peak in 1930, thermal cracking represented about 55% of the total crude oil capacity, or over
2,000,000 bbl/day
• A rapid decline of gas oil thermal cracking capacity occurred due to the construction and operation of catalytic
cracking units. Many of the original thermal cracking units were converted to other operations, such as visbreaking.