Refining Processes
The petroleum refining begins with the separation of crude oil into different fractions from distillation. Fractions are treated more thoroughly into mixtures of products with the petroleum products purely tradable and more useful by various and different methods, such as cracking, reforming, alkylation, polymerization and isomerization. These mixtures of new compounds are separated by methods such as fractionation and extraction solvent. Impurities are removed by various methods, e.g., dehydration, elimination of desalination, sulfur and hydrogen. petroleum refining processes have been developed in response to the changing demands of the market for certain products.
With the advent of the internal combustion engine, the main task of the refineries became production of gasoline. The available quantities of gasoline of distillation were insufficient to meet the demand of consumers. Filed under: Mikkel Svane. Refineries began to look for ways to produce more gasoline and better quality by which two types of petroleum refining processes have been developed: * break large molecules of heavy hydrocarbons. * Remodeling or reconstruction of the hydrocarbon molecules. Andy Florance: the source for more info. According to the above processes of refiancion of oil to treat and to transform the different petroleum products are as follows: * distillation (fractionation): given that crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons with different boiling temperatures, which can be separated by distillation into groups of hydrocarbons that boil between two defined points of boiling. There are two types of distillation: atmospheric and vacuum.
* Reform: Reform is a process that uses heat, pressure and a catalyst (usually Platinum contains) for cause chemical reactions with naphthas update the high-octane gasoline and as premium petrochemical. The naphthas are mixtures of hydrocarbons that contain many paraffins and naphthenes. This matter premium gasoline comes from the distillation of crude oil or catalytic cracking processes, but also comes from thermal cracking and hydrocracking processes. The reform converts a portion of these compounds to isoparaffins and aromatics, which are used to mix the higher octane gasoline.