Special Tech.

2
Petrochemical Technology –
Fundamentals of Refineries
 Chapter - 2
Distillate fuels
• Distillate fuels can be divided into three types: jet or turbine fuels, automotive diesel
fuels or railroad diesel fuels, and heating oils.
• These products are blended from a variety of refinery streams to meet the desired
specifications.
• The consumption of heating oils has ranked high in refinery production goals, but as a
percentage of refinery products, it has been decreasing because of increases in gasoline,
diesel, and jet fuels in recent years.
• Increasingly severe environmental restrictions on fuel emissions have caused some users
of heating oils to convert to natural gas and LPG.
• Expansion of air and truck travel has increased diesel and jet fuel demands.
1. Jet and Turbine Fuels
• Jet fuel is blended for use by both commercial aviation and military aircraft. It is also known
as turbine fuel, and there are several commercial and military jet fuel specifications.
• For most refineries, the primary source of jet fuel blending stocks is the straight-run
kerosene fraction from the atmospheric crude unit, because stringent total aromatic and
naphthalene content and smoke-point specifications limit the amount of cracked stocks
that can be included.
• For refineries with a hydrocracker, kerosene boiling range hydrocarbons from this unit can
also meet jet fuel specifications and are a major contributor to jet fuel production.
• Usually, jet fuels sell at higher prices than diesel fuels and No. 1 and No. 2 heating oils, and
it is more profitable for the refiner to blend the kerosene fractions from the atmospheric
crude unit and the hydrocracker into jet fuel rather than other products.
• Jet fuel is blended from low-sulfur or desulfurized kerosene, hydrotreated light coker gas
oil, and hydrocracked blending stocks. The smoke point and percentage aromatics
specifications limit the amount of cracked stocks that can be blended into jet fuels.
• The two basic types of jet fuels are naphtha and kerosene. Naphtha jet fuel was produced
primarily for the military and was a wide boiling-range stock that extended through the
gasoline and kerosene boiling ranges.
• The naphtha-type jet fuel is more volatile and has more safety problems in handling, but in
case of a national emergency, there would be a tremendous demand for jet fuels; to meet
the requirements, both naphtha and kerosene production would be needed.
• Safety considerations limit commercial jet fuels to the narrower boiling-range product [350
to 550°F (177 to 288°C)], which is sold as Jet A, Jet A-1, JP-5, JP-8, or JP-50.
• The principal differences among these are freezing points, flash point, distillation, smoke
point, and aromatics content.
2. Automotive Diesel Fuels or Railroad Diesel Fuels
• Volatility, ignition quality (expressed as cetane number or cetane index, CI), viscosity, sulfur
content, percentage of aromatics, and cloud point are the important properties of
automotive diesel fuels. No. 1 diesel fuel (sometimes called super-diesel) is generally made
from virgin or hydrocracked stocks having cetane numbers above 45.
• It has a boiling range from 360 to 600°F (182 to 316°C), a sulfur content of 15 ppm (max.),
distillation range, cetane number or cetane index (40 min.), percentage aromatics, and
cloud point.
• No. 2 diesel fuel is very similar to No. 2 fuel oil and has a wider boiling range than No. 1. It
usually contains cracked stocks and may be blended from naphtha, kerosene, and light
cracked oils from the coker and the fluid catalytic cracking unit.
• Railroad diesel engine fuel is one of the significant markets for diesel fuels. Railroad diesel
fuels are similar to the heavier automotive diesel fuels but have higher boiling ranges [up
to 750°F (400°C) end point] and lower cetane numbers (30 minimum).
3. Heating Oils
• Though the consumption of petroleum products for heating purpose ranks very high, but in
recent years, the proportional demand for heating oils has decreased as LPG usage has
increased. The principal distillate fuel oils consist of No. 1 and No. 2 fuel oils.
• No. 1 fuel oil is very similar to kerosene, but generally has a higher pour point and end point.
Limiting specifications are distillation, pour point, flash point, and sulfur content.
• No. 1 fuel is used in furnaces that use a pot-type burner, which vaporizes the fuel oil when it
comes in contact with the hot metal of the pot. It requires high volatility for it to vaporize as
quickly as it is fed to the burner.
• No. 2 fuel oil is very similar to No. 2 diesel fuel, contains cracked stock, and is blended from
naphtha, kerosine, diesel (atmospheric gas oil), and cracked gas oils. Limiting specifications
are sulfur content, pour point, distillation, and flash point.
• It is used for furnaces with atomizing-type burners, which spray the fuel into the combustion
area, and the small droplets produced burn completely.
Residual Fuel Oils
• The fraction of crude obtained from bottom of the ADU is known as residual fuel oil which
may further classified as Fuel No. 4 to Fuel No. 6 depending on its boiling range and
viscosity.
• Typically, to extract the more and more lighter components from heavier fractions, the
residue is processed through the vacuum distillation which gives 2-3 fractions.
• The residual oil can be used as Bunker C oil is a heavy residual oil usually used for ships,
and its specifications are determined by contract between the seller and user.
• Critical specifications are viscosity and sulfur content. Sulfur content specifications are
generally set by the locality in which it is burned.
• Heavy fuel oils with very low sulfur contents are much in demand and sell at prices near
those of the crude oils from which they are derived.
Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU)
• The purpose of vacuum distillation is to extract
distillate cuts from the atmospheric residue
coming from the bottom of the atmospheric
distillation column.
• Distillate cuts are designed to feed conversion
units and yield high added value products.
• When there are no conversion units downstream
these cuts serve to produce heavy fuel oils, except
the lightest cut which can be sent along to the gas
oil pool.
• The residue can constitute a feed for bitumen
manufacture. Lastly, vacuum distillation of crude
can yield base stocks for lube oil manufacture. Figure: Distillation and deasphalting process
• Several technologies are implemented depending on whether steam is used or not.
• “Dry” vacuum distillation is without injection of steam. It needs to run at a very low
pressure (10-15 mmHg at the top) and requires the use of a booster ejector before the first
condenser.
• “Wet” vacuum distillation is carried out with injection of steam in the furnace feed and
stripping steam in the bottom of the tower.
• Total pressure is higher (40-60 mmHg at the top). A pre-condenser is used before the
vacuum system.
• In “Semi-wet” vacuum distillation only steam is injected at the bottom of the column.
• The use of an ejector (booster ejector) is often necessary. It is located upstream from the
first overhead condenser and designed to boost process pressure high enough to allow
condensation.
Figure: Flow diagram of a dry vacuum distillation unit
Figure: Flow diagram of a wet vacuum distillation unit
Working of Vacuum Distillation Unit
• The atmospheric residue is sent directly to vacuum distillation.
• The residue is sometimes stored at approximately 150 °C, to guarantee its viscosity. It then
has to be preheated in a group of exchangers by heat recovery from products and
pumparounds.
• Afterward it is heated in a furnace from 365 to 400 °C and fed into the vacuum distillation
column.
• In wet vacuum distillation, the furnace tubes are often equipped with steam injection to
limit the temperature and thereby reduce coking.
• The number of offtakes is dictated by the requirements of units located downstream.
• The distillate is usually withdrawn in three cuts: 1. Light vacuum gas oil (LVGO): To gas oil
pool; 2. Medium vacuum gas oil (MVGO): Feed for downstream units and 3. Heavy vacuum
gas oil (HVGO): Feed for downstream units.
Figure: Wet vacuum distillation unit with process parameters
Steam Ejectors
• A converging-diverging ejector is a two stage compressor, but with no moving parts.
• It consists of three sections: 1. Steam Nozzle; 2. Converging Part of the Ejector and 3.
Diverging Part of the Ejector.
• Steam Nozzle: The steam nozzle is really small. It's much, much smaller in diameter than
the steam supply line.
• It has a smooth, rounded opening. As steam expands through the steam nozzle, it
accelerates from maybe 15 m/s in the supply line to perhaps 300 m/s
at the discharge of the nozzle.
• The energy to accelerate the steam
comes from two sources: 1. Some from
the pressure of the steam and 2. Most
from the enthalpy.
Figure: Components of a converging-diverging steam jet
• The conversion of the heat content of the steam to kinetic energy an Isoentropic
Expansion.
• Suppose steam is supplied at 150 psig (10 bar) and 360°F (182°C). The temperature of the
mixing chamber (which the nozzle exhausts into) is about 90°F (assuming dry motive
steam).
• The heat represented by the 270°F (360°F - 90°F) cooling of the steam was converted to
speed.
• Converging Part of the Ejector: This is the half of the diffuser body that is downstream of
the steam nozzle. It's perhaps 100 times larger than the steam nozzle.
• The motive steam enters the diffuser inlet at a velocity approaching sonic velocity or the
speed of sound. The motive steam at this point already is combined with the off-gas from
the vacuum tower.
• This off-gas has been drawn into the low pressure region of the mixing chamber created by
motive steam.
• The narrowing cross-section of the converging section of the diffuser causes the motive
steam (including the off-gas) to accelerate.
• The combined vapor stream reaches, and then exceeds, the speed of sound at or before
the diffuser's narrowest section, called the throat.
• As the flowing combined stream (i.e., steam plus gas) reaches sonic velocity, at or before
the diffuser throat, it creates a pressure wave front known as the Sonic Boost.
• This will compress the vapors by a factor of perhaps three or four to one. However, if sonic
velocity is not reached at or before the diffuser throat, then the sonic boost does not
develop and the vapors are not compressed at all.
• The Diverging Portion of the Ejector: This is the half of the diffuser body downstream of
the diffuser throat. It's the back half of the diffuser.
• The flowing vapors exit the throat into the gradually increasing cross-section of the
diffuser. This causes the vapor to slow.
• The reduced kinetic energy of the vapor is converted into pressure known as the Velocity
Boost.
• This will compress the vapor by a factor of about two or three to one. The velocity boost is
essentially the second, and smaller stage, of a two-stage compressor, with no moving parts.
• The combined effect of the sonic boost multiplied by the velocity boost is the overall
ejector compression ratio. A more common compression ratio is about 8:1.
• Ejector system: An ejector system is a combination of ejectors and condensers arranged in
series.
• The system produces and maintains sub-atmospheric pressure (a vacuum) within the
distillation column to permit fractionation of crude oil into its various important
components, such as light or heavy vacuum gas oils and reduce the amount of lower
valued residuum.
• The ejector system will continually extract from the distillation column cracked and inert
gases along with associated saturated steam and hydrocarbon vapours.
• Failure to extract the gases and saturated vapours properly will result in an increase in
distillation column operating pressure, thereby increasing residuum while lowering LVGO
and HVGO yield.
• The ejector system extracts the gases at sub-atmospheric pressure and compresses them
to a pressure typically above atmospheric pressure where they enter another refinery
process for treating or repurposing of the gases.

Figure: Typical arrangement of Ejector system