Desalting process
Purpose of crude oil desalting
• Crude oil introduced to refinery processing contains many
undesirable impurities, such as sand, inorganic salts, drilling
mud, polymer, corrosion byproduct, etc.
• The purpose of desalting is to remove these undesirable
impurities, especially salts and water, from the crude oil prior
to distillation.
Effects of impurities in crude oil
• Salts deposit inside the tubes of furnaces and on the tube bundles of heat
exchangers creating fouling, thus reducing the heat transfer efficiency;
• Corrosion of overhead equipment; The Inorganic salts can be
decomposed in the crude oil pre-heat exchangers and heaters. As a result,
hydrogen chloride gas is formed which condenses to liquid hydrochloric
acid at overhead system of distillation column, that may causes serious
corrosion of equipment.
• The salts carried with the products act as catalyst poisons in catalytic
cracking units.
• The sand or silt can cause significant damage due to abrasion or erosion
to pumps, pipelines, etc.
Types of Salts in Crude Oil
• Salts are mostly magnesium, calcium and sodium chlorides with sodium
chloride being the abundant type.
• Salts in the crude oil are mostly in the form of dissolved salts in fine water
droplets emulsified in the crude oil. This is called a water-in-oil emulsion,
where the continuous phase is the oil and the dispersed phase is the water.
• The water droplets are so small that they cannot settle by gravity.
Droplet size distribution of crude oil emulsions (Harkins, 1947).
Types of Salts in Crude Oil
• These fine droplets have on their surfaces the big asphaltene molecules
with the fine solid particles coming from sediments, sands or corrosion
products.
• The presence of these molecules on the surface of the droplets acts as a
shield that prevents the droplets from uniting with each other in what is
called coalescence.
• The salts can also be present in the form of salts crystals suspended in the
crude oil.
Schematic diagram of emulsion stabilization in the presence of
asphaltene (Kokal, 2005).
Benefits of Crude Oil Desalting
• Increase crude throughput.
• Less plugging, scaling, coking of heat exchanger and furnace tubes.
• Less corrosion in exchanger, fractionators, pipelines, etc.
• Better corrosion control in CDU overhead
• Less erosion by solids in control valves, exchanger, furnace, pumps.
• Saving of oil from slops from waste oil.
Description of Desalting Process
• To remove the salts from the crude oil, the water-in oil emulsion has to be
broken, thus producing a continuous water phase that can be readily
separated as a simple decanting process. The process is accomplished
through the following steps
• Water washing: Water is mixed with the incoming crude oil through a
mixing valve. The water dissolves salt crystals and the mixing distributes
the salts into the water, uniformly producing very tiny droplets.
Demulsifying agents are added at this stage to aide in breaking the
emulsion by removing the asphaltenes from the surface of the droplets.
• Heating: The crude oil temperature range is 50–150 ⁰C since the water–oil
separation is affected by the viscosity and density of the oil.
Cont…
• Coalescence: The water droplets are so fine in diameter in the range of 1–
10 μm that they do not settle by gravity. Coalescence produces larger drops
that can be settled by gravity. This is accomplished through an electrostatic
electric field between two electrodes. The electric field ionizes the water
droplets and orients them so that they are attracted to each other. Agitation
is also produced and aides in coalescence. The force of attraction between
the water droplets is given by:
• where E is the electric field, d is the drop diameter and s is the distance
between drops centres and K is a constant.
Cont…
• Settling: According to Stock’s law the settling rate of the
water droplets after coalescence is given by
• where ρ is the density μ is the viscosity, d is the droplet
diameter and k is a constant.
Crude oil desalting process
• Dilution water injection
and dispersion.
• Emulsification of diluted
water in oil.
• Distribution of the
emulsion in the
electrostatic field.
• Electrostatic coalescence.
• Water droplet settling.
Desalter Operating Variables
• For an efficient desalter operation, the following variables are controlled:
• Desalting temperature: 90-150°C (helps reduce viscosity and improve
water-oil separation).
• Pressure: 10-20 bar (to prevent vaporization).
• Water-to-oil ratio: 3-10% by volume.
• Electric field: 12-35 kV to enhance coalescence.
• Water level: Raising the water level reduces the settling time for the water
droplets in the crude oil, thus improving the desalting efficiency. However,
if the water level gets too high and reaches the lower electrode, it shorts out
the desalter. Since the primary electric field depends on the distance
between the lower electrode and the water–crude interface, it is always
better to keep the level constant for stable operation.
Cont…
• Demulsifier injection rate: Demulsifiers are basic copolymers with one end being
hydrophilic (loves water and attaches to the surface of the water droplet), and the
other end being hydrophobic (loves the oil and is directed to the oil side). When
these compounds are adsorbed on the droplet surface, they stabilize the droplet. The
demulsifier is added to the crude after the feed pump or before the mixing valve at
levels between 3 and 10 ppm of the crude.
• Type of washing water: Process water in addition of fresh water is used for
desalting. The water should be relatively soft in order to prevent scaling. It should
be slightly acidic with a pH in the range of 6. It should be free from hydrogen
sulphide and ammonia so as to not create more corrosion problems. Therefore,
distillation overhead condensates and process water from other units can be used
after stripping.
• Pressure drop in the mixing valve: Mixing the washing water with crude oil is
necessary in order to distribute the water and dissolve any suspended salts crystals.
The pressure drop across the mixing valve determines the mixing efficiency.
On the other hand, the mixing process produces finer (smaller diameter) droplets
which tend to stabilize the emulsion and make water separation more difficult.
Therefore, there is a compromise in selection of the appropriate pressure drop
across the mixing valve. A pressure drop between 0.5 and 1.5 bar (7.4 and 22 psi) is
used.
Thanks
inprotected.com
