Types Of Refinery

A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations used for refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.

The various types of refineries include:

Oil refinery: Converts petroleum crude oil into high-octane motor fuel (gasoline/petrol), diesel oil, liquefied petroleum gases (LPG), jet aircraft fuel, kerosene, heating fuel oils, lubricating oils, asphalt and petroleum coke.

Sugar refinery: Converts sugar cane and sugar beets into crystallized sugar and sugar syrups.

Natural gas processing plant: Purifies and converts raw natural gas into residential, commercial and industrial fuel gas, and also recovers natural gas liquids (NGL) such as ethane, propane, butanes and pentanes.

Salt refinery: Cleans salt (NaCl), produced by the solar evaporation of sea water, followed by washing and re-crystallization.

Various metal refineries such as alumina, copper, gold, lead, nickel, silver, uranium, and zinc.


Vegetable oil refinery



A typical oil refinery

Oil refinery The image below is a schematic flow diagram of a typical oil refinery that depicts the various unit processes and the flow of intermediate product streams that occurs between the inlet crude oil feedstock and the final end products. The diagram depicts only one of the literally hundreds of different oil refinery configurations. It does not include any of the usual refinery facilities providing utilities such as steam, cooling water, and electric power as well as storage tanks for crude oil feedstock and for intermediate products and end products.

Electrical Generator

In electricity generation, an electrical generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy, generally using electromagnetic induction. The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by a motor; motors and generators have many similarities. A generator forces electric charges to move through an external electrical circuit, but it does not create electricity or charge, which is already present in the wire of its windings. It is somewhat analogous to a water pump, which creates a flow of water but does not create the water inside. The source of mechanical energy may be a reciprocating or turbine steam engine, water falling through a turbine or waterwheel, an internal combustion engine, a wind turbine, a hand crank, compressed air or any other source of mechanical energy.

Historic developments.

Before the connection between magnetism and electricity was discovered, electrostatic generators were invented that used electrostatic principles. These generated very high voltages and low currents. They operated by using moving electrically charged belts, plates and disks to carry charge to a high potential electrode. The charge was generated using either of two mechanisms:

• Electrostatic induction
• The triboelectric effect

where the contact between two insulators leaves them charged.Because of their inefficiency and the difficulty of insulating machines producing very high voltages, electrostatic generators had low power ratings and were never used for generation of commercially-significant quantities of electric power. The Wimshurst machine and Van de Graaff generator are examples of these machines that have survived.

Desalter

A desalter is a process unit on an oil refinery that removes salt from the crude oil. The salt is dissolved in the water in the crude oil, not in the crude oil itself. The desalting is usually the first process in crude oil refining. The salt content after the desalter is usually measured in PTB - pounds of salt per thousand barrels of crude oil.[1] Another specification is Basic sediment and water.

The term desalter may also refer to a water desalination facility used to treat brackish water from agricultural runoff. This may be done either to produce potable water for human or animal consumption, or to reduce the salinity of river water prior to its crossing an international border, usually to comply with the terms of a treaty. Desalters are also used to treat groundwater reservoirs in areas impacted by cattle feedlots and dairies.

Why Desalt Crude?

The salts that are most frequently present in crude oil are Calcium,Sodium and Magnesium Chlorides. If these compounds are not removed from the oil several problems arise in the refining process. The high temperatures that occur downstream in the process could cause water hydrolysis, which in turn allows the formation of hydrochloric acid.Sand, Silts, Salt deposit and Foul Heat ExchangersWater Heat of Vaporization reduces crude Pre-Heat capacitySodium, Arsenic and Other Metals can poison CatalystsEnvironmental Compliance, i.e., By removing the suspended solids, which might otherwise become an issue in flue gas opacity norms, etc.,

Chemical reactor

In chemical engineering, chemical reactors are vessels designed to contain chemical reactions. The design of a chemical reactor deals with multiple aspects of chemical engineering. Chemical engineers design reactors to maximize net present value for the given reaction. Designers ensure that the reaction proceeds with the highest efficiency towards the desired output product, producing the highest yield of product while requiring the least amount of money to purchase and operate. Normal operating expenses include energy input, energy removal, raw material costs, labor, etc. Energy changes can come in the form of heating or cooling, pumping to increase pressure, frictional pressure loss (such as pressure drop across a 90o elbow or an orifice plate), agitation, etc.

There are two main basic vessel types:

• a tank
• a pipe

Both types can be used as continuous reactors or batch reactors. Most commonly, reactors are run at steady-state, but can also be operated in a transient state. When a reactor is first brought back into operation (after maintenance or inoperation) it would be considered to be in a transient state, where key process variables change with time. Both types of reactors may also accommodate one or more solids (reagents, catalyst, or inert materials), but the reagents and products are typically liquids and gases.

There are three main basic models used to estimate the most important process variables of different chemical reactors:

• batch reactor model (batch),
• continuous stirred-tank reactor model (CSTR),
• plug flow reactor

model (PFR).Furthermore, catalytic reactors require separate treatment, whether they are batch, CST, or PF reactors, as the many assumptions of the simpler models are not valid.
Key process variables include

• residence time (τ, lower case Greek tau)
• volume (V)
• temperature (T)
• pressure (P)concentrations of chemical species (C1, C2, C3, ... Cn)
• heat transfer coefficients (h, U)
  

Air preheater

An air preheater or air heater is a general term to describe any device designed to heat air before another process (for example, combustion in a boiler) with the primary objective of increasing the thermal efficiency of the process. They may be used alone or to replace a recuperative heat system or to replace a steam coil.
In particular, this article describes the combustion air preheaters used in large boilers found in thermal power stations producing electric power from e.g. fossil fuels, biomasses or waste.

The purpose of the air preheater is to recover the heat from the boiler flue gas which increases the thermal efficiency of the boiler by reducing the useful heat lost in the flue gas. As a consequence, the flue gases are also sent to the flue gas stack (or chimney) at a lower temperature, allowing simplified design of the ducting and the flue gas stack. It also allows control over the temperature of gases leaving the stack .

Turbine

A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow. Claude Burdin (1788-1873) coined the term from the Latin turbo, or vortex, during an 1828 engineering competition. Benoit Fourneyron (1802-1867), a student of Claude Burdin, built the first practical water turbine.
The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they rotate and impart energy to the rotor. Early turbine examples are windmills and water wheels.
Gas, steam, and water turbines usually have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Credit for invention of the modern steam turbine is given to British Engineer Sir Charles Parsons (1854 - 1931).
A device similar to a turbine but operating in reverse is a compressor or pump. The axial compressor in many gas turbine engines is a common example.

Theory of operation

A working fluid contains potential energy (pressure head) and kinetic energy (velocity head). The fluid may be compressible or incompressible. Several physical principles are employed by turbines to collect this energy:

Impulse turbines

These turbines change the direction of flow of a high velocity fluid jet. The resulting impulse spins the turbine and leaves the fluid flow with diminished kinetic energy. There is no pressure change of the fluid in the turbine rotor blades. Before reaching the turbine the fluid's pressure head is changed to velocity head by accelerating the fluid with a nozzle. Pelton wheels and de Laval turbines use this process exclusively. Impulse turbines do not require a pressure casement around the runner since the fluid jet is prepared by a nozzle prior to reaching turbine. Newton's second law describes the transfer of energy for impulse turbines.

Reaction turbines

These turbines develop torque by reacting to the fluid's pressure or weight. The pressure of the fluid changes as it passes through the turbine rotor blades. A pressure casement is needed to contain the working fluid as it acts on the turbine stage(s) or the turbine must be fully immersed in the fluid flow (wind turbines). The casing contains and directs the working fluid and, for water turbines, maintains the suction imparted by the draft tube. Francis turbines and most steam turbines use this concept. For compressible working fluids, multiple turbine stages may be used to harness the expanding gas efficiently. Newton's third law describes the transfer of energy for reaction turbines.

Furnace

A furnace is a device used for heating. The name derives from Latin fornax, oven. The earliest furnace was excavated at Balakot, a site of the Indus Valley Civilization, dating back to its mature phase (c. 2500-1900 BC). The furnace was most likely used for the manufacturing of ceramic objects.
In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace (known either as a boiler or a heater in British English), and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the production of ceramics. In British English the term furnace is used exclusively to mean industrial furnaces which are used for many things, such as the extraction of metal from ore (smelting) or in oil refineries and other chemical plants, for example as the heat source for fractional distillation columns.
The term furnace can also refer to a direct fired heater, used in boiler applications in chemical industries or for providing heat to chemical reactions for processes like cracking, and is part of the standard English names for many metallurgical furnaces worldwide.
The heat energy to fuel a furnace may be supplied directly by fuel combustion, by electricity such as the electric arc furnace, or through Induction heating in induction furnaces.

Heat exchanger

A heat exchanger is a device built for efficient heat transfer from one medium to another, whether the media are separated by a solid wall so that they never mix, or the media are in direct contact.[1] They are widely used in space heating, refrigeration, air conditioning, power plants, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, petroleum refineries, and natural gas processing. One common example of a heat exchanger is the radiator in a car, in which the heat source, being a hot engine-cooling fluid, water, transfers heat to air flowing through the radiator

Types of heat exchangers

Shell and tube heat exchanger A Shell and Tube heat exchangerMain article: Shell and tube heat exchangerShell and tube heat exchangers consist of a series of tubes. One set of these tubes contains the fluid that must be either heated or cooled. The second fluid runs over the tubes that are being heated or cooled so that it can either provide the heat or absorb the heat required. A set of tubes is called the tube bundle and can be made up of several types of tubes: plain, longitudinally finned, etc. Shell and Tube heat exchangers are typically used for high pressure applications (with pressures greater than 30 bar and temperatures greater than 260°C.[2] This is because the shell and tube heat exchangers are robust due to their shape.There are several thermal design features that are to be taken into account when designing the tubes in the shell and tube heat exchangers. These include:
Tube diameter: Using a small tube diameter makes the heat exchanger both economical and compact. However, it is more likely for the heat exchanger to foul up faster and the small size makes mechanical cleaning of the fouling difficult. To prevail over the fouling and cleaning problems, larger tube diameters can be used. Thus to determine the tube diameter, the available space, cost and the fouling nature of the fluids must be considered. Tube thickness: The thickness of the wall of the tubes is usually determined to ensure: There is enough room for corrosion That flow-induced vibration has resistance Axial strength Ability to easily stock spare parts costSometimes the wall thickness is determined by the maximum pressure differential across the wall.

Plate heat exchanger

Main article: Plate heat exchangerAnother type of heat exchanger is the plate heat exchanger. One is composed of multiple, thin, slightly-separated plates that have very large surface areas and fluid flow passages for heat transfer. This stacked-plate arrangement can be more effective, in a given space, than the shell and tube heat exchanger. Advances in gasket and brazing technology have made the plate-type heat exchanger increasingly practical. In HVAC applications, large heat exchangers of this type are called plate-and-frame; when used in open loops, these heat exchangers are normally of the gasketed type to allow periodic disassembly, cleaning, and inspection. There are many types of permanently-bonded plate heat exchangers, such as dip-brazed and vacuum-brazed plate varieties, and they are often specified for closed-loop applications such as refrigeration. Plate heat exchangers also differ in the types of plates that are used, and in the configurations of those plates. Some plates may be stamped with "chevron" or other patterns, where others may have machined fins and/or grooves.

Regenerative heat exchanger

A third type of heat exchanger is the regenerative heat exchanger. In this, the heat (heat medium) from a process is used to warm the fluids to be used in the process, and the same type of fluid is used either side of the heat exchanger (these heat exchangers can be either plate-and-frame or shell-and-tube construction). These exchangers are used only for gases and not for liquids. The major factor for this is the heat capacity of the heat transfer matrix. Also see: Countercurrent exchange, Regenerator, Economizer

Pump

A pump is a device used to move fluids, such as gases, liquids or slurries. A pump displaces a volume by physical or mechanical action. One common misconception about pumps is the thought that they create pressure. Pumps alone do not create pressure; they only displace fluid, causing a flow. Adding resistance to flow causes pressure.

The earliest type of pump was the Archimedes screw, first used by Sennacherib, King of Assyria, for the water systems at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Nineveh in the 7th century BC, and later described in more detail by Archimedes in the 3rd century BC.[1] In the 13th century AD, al-Jazari described and illustrated different types of pumps, including a reciprocating pump, double-action pump, suction pump, and piston pump.

In Indian mythology, Lord Krishna playfully splashed colors on Gopees using a "Pichkaaree", which was, and is even now, a reciprocating hand pump. Hence historically "Pichkaaree" should be recognized as the first pump ever devised.


Types

Pumps fall into two major groups: positive displacement pumps and rotodynamic pumps . Their names describe the method for moving a fluid.

Positive displacement pumps

A lobe pump

Hand-operated, reciprocating, positive displacement, water pump in Košice-Ťahanovce, Slovakia (walking beam pump).

Mechanism of a scroll pump

A positive displacement pump causes a fluid to move by trapping a fixed amount of it then forcing (displacing) that trapped volume into the discharge pipe. A positive displacement pump can be further classified as either

* a rotary-type, for example, the lobe, external gear, internal gear, screw, shuttle block,
flexible vane or sliding vane pumps,
* the Wendelkolben pump or the helical twisted Roots pump.
* the liquid ring vacuum pump

Gear pump

This uses two meshed gears rotating in a closely fitted casing. Fluid is pumped around the outer periphery by being trapped in the tooth spaces. It does not travel back on the meshed part, since the teach mesh closely in the centre. Widely used on car engine oil pumps.
Roots-type pumps

The low pulsation rate and gentle performance of this Roots-type positive displacement pump is achieved due to a combination of its two 90° helical twisted rotors, and a triangular shaped sealing line configuration, both at the point of suction and at the point of discharge. This design produces a continuous and non-vorticuless flow with equal volume. High capacity industrial "air compressors" have been designed to employ this principle as well as most "superchargers" used on internal combustion engines.
Reciprocating-type pumps

Reciprocating-type pumps use a piston and cylinder arrangement with suction and discharge valves integrated into the pump. Pumps in this category range from having "simplex" one cylinder, to in some cases "quad" four cylinders or more. Most reciprocating-type pumps are "duplex" (two) or "triplex" (three) cylinder. Furthermore, they are either "single acting" independent suction and discharge strokes or "double acting" suction and discharge in both directions. The pumps can be powered by air, steam or through a belt drive from an engine or motor. This type of pump was used extensively in the early days of steam propulsion (19th century) as boiler feed water pumps. Though still used today, reciprocating pumps are typically used for pumping highly viscous fluids including concrete and heavy oils.

Compressed-air-powered double-diaphragm pumps

Another modern application of positive displacement pumps are compressed-air-powered double-diaphragm pumps. Run on compressed air these pumps are intrinsically safe by design, although all manufacturers offer ATEX certified models to comply with industry regulation. Commonly seen in all areas of industry from shipping to process, SandPiper, Wilden Pumps or ARO are generally the larger of the brands. They are relatively inexpensive and can be used for almost any duty from pumping water out of bunds, to pumping hydrochloric acid from secure storage (dependant on how the pump is manufactured - elastomers / body construction). Suction is normally limited to roughly 6m although heads can be almost unlimited

Control Valves

Control valves are valves used mainly within industrial plants to control operating conditions such as flow, pressure, temperature, and liquid level by fully or partially opening or closing in response to signals received from controllers that compare a "setpoint" to a "process variable" whose value is provided by sensors that monitor changes in such conditions.

The opening or closing of control valves is done by means of electrical, hydraulic or pneumatic systems. Positoners are used to control the opening or closing of the actuator based on Electric, or Pnuematic Signals. These control signals, traditionaly based on 3-15psi (0.2-1.0bar), more common now are 4-20mA signals for industry, 0-10V for HVAC systems, & the introduction of "Smart" systems, HART, Fieldbus Foundation, & Profibus being the more common protocols.

Types of control valve

Control valves may be categorized as below:


o Conventional valve
o Severe service valve
o Pressure independent control valve

Types of control valve bodies

The most common and versatile types of control valves are sliding-stem globe and angle valves. Their popularity derives from rugged construction and the many options available that make them suitable for a variety of process applications, including severe service. Control valve bodies may be categorized as below.
Globe control valve with pneumatic actuator and smart positioner

* Angle valves
o Cage-style valve bodies
o DiskStack style valve bodies

* Angle seat piston valves

* Globe valves
o Single-port valve bodies
o Balanced-plug cage-style valve bodies
o High capacity, cage-guided valve bodies
o Port-guided single-port valve bodies
o Double-ported valve bodies
o Three-way valve bodies

* Rotary valves
o Butterfly valve bodies
o V-notch ball control valve bodies
o Eccentric-disk control valve bodies
o Eccentric-plug control valve bodies