Crude Tower

The crude tower is part of the crude distillation unit and is most commonly referred to as the distillation
column or atmospheric distillation column. The temperature at the entrance of the furnace where the
crude enters is 200 – 280oC°. It is then further heated to about 330 – 370C° inside the furnace. The
pressure maintained is about 1 bar gauge.
Refining end-products or the primary end-products produced in petroleum refining may be grouped
into four categories light distillates, middle distillates, heavy distillates and others.
Light distillates products:1.
Refinery gases or off gas: density (0.20-0.38) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (+65)C̊.
Liquid petroleum gas (LPG): density (0.52-0.58) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (+65)C̊.
Naphtha: density (0.68-0.71) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (100-120)C̊.
Kerosene: density (0.76-0.80) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (180-220)C̊.
Diesel: density (0.82-0.84) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (230-260)Cͦ.
2. Middle distillates:
Light fuel oil: density (0.92-0.96) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (+265)C̊.
Heavy fuel oil: density (0.97-1) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (+300)C̊.
3. Heavy distillates:
Asphalt, carbon black and tar: density (2-2.36) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (+360)C̊.
Petroleum coke: density (1-1.7) gm/m³, draw off at temperature (+450)C̊.
Lubricating oil and transformer and cable oil: density (0.83-0.89) gm/m³, product from solvent
dewaxing process and thickening process.
Waxes and greases: density (1.8-2) gm/m³, product from solvent dewaxing process.

Distillation tower components:

Distillation columns are made up of several components, each of which is used either to transfer heat
energy or enhance material transfer. A typical distillation contains several major components:
 Vertical shell where the separation of liquid components is carried out column internals such
as trays/plates and/or packing which are used to enhance component separations as shown in
(fig.1.4a) .
 Re-boiler to provide the necessary vaporization for the distillation process.
  Condenser to cool and condense the vapors leaving the top of the column.
 Reflux drum to hold the condensed vapors from the top of the column so that liquid (reflux)
can be recycled back to the column.

Distillation tower tray and packing tray:

The trays or plates used in industrial distillation columns are fabricated of circular steel plates and
usually installed inside the column at intervals of about 60 to 75 cm (24 to 30 inches) up the height of
the column. That spacing is chosen primarily for ease of installation and ease of access for future
repair or maintenance .Typical bubble cap trays used in industrial distillation columns. An example
of a very simple tray is a perforated tray. The desired contacting between vapor and liquid occurs as
the vapor, flowing upwards through the perforations, comes into contact with the liquid flowing
downwards through the perforations. In current modern practice, as shown in the adjacent diagram,
better contacting is achieved by installing bubble-caps or valve caps at each perforation to promote
the formation of vapor bubbles flowing through a thin layer of liquid maintained by a weir on each
tray.
Type of tray:
1. Bubble-cups tray.
2. Valve tray.
3. Sieve tray.
4. Packing tray: used for gases and absorption system.
The vertical shell houses the column internals and together with the condenser and reboiler,
constitutes a distillation column. A schematic of a typical distillation unit with a single feed and two
product streams is shown below:
Basic Operation and Terminology:
The liquid mixture that is to be processed is known as the feed and this is introduced usually
somewhere near the middle of the column to a tray known as the feed tray. The feed tray divides the
column into a top (enriching or rectification) section and a bottom (stripping) section. The feed flows
down the column where it is collected at the bottom in the reboiler.
Heat is supplied to the reboiler to generate vapour. The source of heat input can be any suitable fluid,
although in most chemical plants this is normally steam. In refineries, the heating source may be the
output streams of other columns. The vapour raised in the reboiler is re-introduced into the unit at
the bottom of the column. The liquid removed from the reboiler is known as the bottoms product or
simply, bottoms.
Top section, the vapor moves up the column, and as it exits the top of the unit, it is cooled by a
condenser. The condensed liquid is stored in a holding vessel known as the reflux drum. Some of
this liquid is recycled back to the top of the column and this is called the reflux.
Reflux refers to the portion of the overhead liquid product from a distillation column or fractionator
that is returned to the upper part of the column as shown in the schematic diagram of a typical
industrial distillation column. Inside the column, the down flowing reflux liquid provides cooling and
condensation of the up flowing vapors thereby increasing the efficiency of the distillation column.
The more reflux provided for a given number of theoretical plates, the better is the column's
separation of lower boiling materials from higher boiling materials. Conversely, for a given desired
separation, the more reflux is provided, the fewer theoretical plates are required. The condensed
liquid that is removed from the system is known as the distillate or top product.
Thus, there are internal flows of vapors and liquid within the column as well as external flows of feeds
and product streams, into and out of the column.
Stripper
The purpose of the side stripper is to remove very light hydrocarbons by using steam injection or an external
heater called 'reboiler'. The stripping steam rate, or reboiled duty is controlled such as to meet the flashpoint
specification of the product. Similarly to the atmospheric column, the side stripper has fractionating trays
for providing contact between vapour and liquid. The vapours produced from the top of the side stripper
are routed back via pipe into the fractionating column.
At the bottom of the fractionation column a heavy, brown/black coloured fraction called residue is drawn
off. In order to strip all light hydrocarbons from this fraction properly, the bottom section of the column is
equipped with a set of stripping trays, which are operated by injecting some stripping steam (1 - 3% on
bottom product) into the bottom of the column.
Crude tower strippers
Kerosene stripper
Gasoil strippers
Diesel strippers
Stabilizer
A stabilizer is essentially a distillation column intended to remove what is normally a relatively small
amount of "light ends" from a product. The product is then "stabilized". A stabilizer is incorporated in the
crude distillation section of some refineries instead of being placed with the refinery gas plant. The liquid
condensed from the overhead vapor stream of the atmospheric pipe still contains propane and butanes,
which make the vapor pressure much higher than is acceptable for gasoline blending.
To remove these, the condensed liquid in excess of reflux requirements is charged to a stabilizing tower,
where the vapor pressure is adjusted by removing the propane and butanes from the LSR gasoline stream.
Later, in the product-blending section of the refinery, n-butane is added to the gasoline stream to provide
the desired Reid vapor pressure.

Diesel
A diesel fuel is any fuel suitable for burning in diesel or compression ignition engines. Diesel fuel is a
mixture of hydrocarbons obtained by distillation of crude oil. The important properties, which are used to
characterize diesel fuel, include cetane number (or cetane index), fuel volatility, density, viscosity, cold
behavior, and Sulphur content. Diesel fuel specifications differ for various fuel grades and in different
countries.

In a compression ignition engine, air alone is drawn into cylinder and compressed until it is very hot (about
500 deg C). At this stage, finely atomized fuel is injected at a very high pressure, which is ignited by the
heat of compression and hence the term compression ignition (C.I.). A spark ignition engine on the other
hand, relies upon a carburetor to supply into the cylinder a mixture of gasoline vapor and air, which after
compression, is ignited by a spark.

The average compression ratio of a diesel engine is much higher (about 15:1) than that of a gasoline engine
(about 8:1) and this is the reason for the higher thermal efficiency of the diesel engine (about 33% as
compared to about 25% of the gasoline engine) which makes for economy in operation.

Two main grades of diesel fuel are marketed in India, High Speed Diesel (HSD) and Light diesel oil
(LDO). The former is a 100% distillate fuel while the latter is a blend of distillate fuel with a small
proportion of residual fuel.

HSD is normally used as a fuel for high speed diesel engines operating above 750 rpm i.e. buses,
lorries, generating sets, locomotives, pumping sets etc. Gas turbine requiring distillate fuels normally make
use of HSD as fuel.

LDO is used in medium and slow speed diesel engines operating below 750 rpm employed in earth
moving equipment, pump sets, power generation, marine engines, industrial application, heating purposes,
etc.