WHAT IS MEAN BY REFINING?

                   An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as naphtha, gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas.Oil refineries are typically large, sprawling industrial complexes with extensive piping running throughout, carrying streams of fluids between large chemical processing units. In many ways, oil refineries use much of the technology of, and can be thought of, as types of chemical plants. The crude oil feed stock has typically been processed by an oil production plant. There is usually an oil depot (tank farm) at or near an oil refinery for storage of bulk liquid products.

An oil refinery is considered an essential part of the downstream side of the petroleum industry.

Raw or unprocessed crude oil is not generally useful in industrial applications, although "light, sweet" (low viscosity, low sulfur) crude oil has been used directly as a burner fuel for steam vessel propulsion. The lighter elements, however, form explosive vapors in the fuel tanks and are therefore hazardous, especially in warships. Instead, the hundreds of different hydrocarbon molecules in crude oil are separated in a refinery into components which can be used as fuels, lubricants, and as feedstock in petrochemical processes that manufacture such products as plastics, detergents, solvents, elastomers and fibers such as nylon and polyesters.

Petroleum fossil fuels are burned in internal combustion engines to provide power for ships, automobiles, aircraft engines, lawn mowers, chainsaws, and other machines. Different boiling points allow the hydrocarbons to be separated by distillation. Since the lighter liquid products are in great demand for use in internal combustion engines, a modern refinery will convert heavy hydrocarbons and lighter gaseous elements into these higher value products.

Once separated and purified of any contaminants and impurities, the fuel or lubricant can be sold without further processing. Smaller molecules such as isobutane and propylene orbutylenes can be recombined to meet specific octane requirements by processes such asalkylation, or less commonly, dimerization. Octane grade of gasoline can also be improved by catalytic reforming, which involves removing hydrogen from hydrocarbons producing compounds with higher octane ratings such as aromatics. Intermediate products such as gasoils can even be reprocessed to break a heavy, long-chained oil into a lighter short-chained one, by various forms of cracking such as fluid catalytic cracking, thermal cracking, and hydrocracking. The final step in gasoline production is the blending of fuels with different octane ratings, vapor pressures, and other properties to meet product specifications.

Oil refineries are large scale plants, processing about a hundred thousand to several hundred thousand barrels of crude oil a day. Because of the high capacity, many of the units operate continuously, as opposed to processing in batches, at steady state or nearly steady state for months to years. The high capacity also makes process optimization andadvanced process control very desirable.

WORLD REFINING CAPACITY:

                       Broadly speaking, refining developed in consuming areas, because it was cheaper to move crude oil than to move product. Furthermore, the proximity to consuming markets made it easier to respond to weather-induced spikes in demand or to gauge seasonal shifts. Thus, while the Mideast is the largest producing region, the bulk of refining takes place in the United States, Europe or Asia.

There have historically been a few exceptions—concentrations of refining capacity that were not proximate to consuming markets. A refining center in the Caribbean, for instance, supplied heavy fuel oil to the U.S. East Coast where it was used for power,heat, and electric generation. As the demand for this heavy fuel oil, or residual fuel oil, waned, so did those dedicated refineries. While the Caribbean refineries, as well as refineries in the Middle East and in Singapore, were built for product export, they are the exception. As such, most refineries meet their "local" demand first, with exports providing a temporary flow for balancing supply and demand.

capacity worldwide, as shown in the graph in Figure 5, and as discussed more fully below. Asia and Europe follow as refining centers. As also shown in the graph, North America (again, the United States) has by far the largest concentration of downstream capacity—the processing units necessary to maximize output of gasoline. The gasoline emphasis of course mirrors the demand barrel and hence refinery output in the different regions, since no other global region uses as much of its oil in the form of

The largest concentration of refining capacity is in North America (in fact, the United States), accounting for about one-quarter of the crude oil distillation gasoline as North America does.

In addition to gravity and sulfur content, the type of hydrocarbon molecules and other natural characteristics may affect the cost of processing or restrict a crude oil's suitability for specific uses. The presence of heavy metals, contaminants for the processing and for the finished product, is one example. The molecular structure of a crude oil also dictates whether a crude stream can be used for the manufacture of specialty products, such as lubricating oils or of petrochemical feedstocks.

Refiners therefore strive to run the optimal mix (or "slate") of crudes through their refineries, depending on the refinery's equipment, the desired output mix, and the relative price of available crudes. In recent years, refiners have confronted two opposite forces—consumers' and government mandates that increasingly required light products of higher quality (the most difficult to produce) and crude oil supply that was increasingly heavier, with higher sulfur content (the most difficult to refine).

REFINING PROCESS IN CPCL:

Every refinery begins with the separation of crude oil into different fractions by distillation.

The fractions are further treated to convert them into mixtures of more useful saleable products by various methods such as cracking, reforming, alkylation, polymerisation and isomerisation. These mixtures of new compounds are then separated using methods such as fractionation and solvent extraction. Impurities are removed by various methods, e.g. dehydration, desalting, sulphur removal and hydrotreating.

Refinery processes have developed in response to changing market demands for certain products. With the advent of the internal combustion engine the main task of refineries became the production of petrol. The quantities of petrol available from distillation alone was insufficient to satisfy consumer demand. Refineries began to look for ways to produce more and better quality petrol. Two types of processes have been developed:

• breaking down large, heavy hydrocarbon molecules
• reshaping or rebuilding hydrocarbon molecules
• Distillation (Fractionation)

                      Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons with different boiling temperatures, it can be separated by distillation into groups of hydrocarbons that boil between two specified boiling points. Two types of distillation are performed: atmospheric and vacuum.
Atmospheric distillation takes place in a distilling column at or near atmospheric pressure. The crude oil is heated to 350 - 400^oC and the vapour and liquid are piped into the distilling column. The liquid falls to the bottom and the vapour rises, passing through a series of perforated trays (sieve trays). Heavier hydrocarbons condense more quickly and settle on lower trays and lighter hydrocarbons remain as a vapour longer and condense on higher trays.
Liquid fractions are drawn from the trays and removed. In this way the light gases, methane, ethane, propane and butane pass out the top of the column, petrol is formed in the top trays, kerosene and gas oils in the middle, and fuel oils at the bottom. Residue drawn of the bottom may be burned as fuel, processed into lubricating oils, waxes and bitumen or used as feedstock for cracking units.
To recover additional heavy distillates from this residue, it may be piped to a second distillation column where the process is repeated under vacuum, called vacuum distillation.This allows heavy hydrocarbons with boiling points of 450^oC and higher to be separated without them partly cracking into unwanted products such as coke and gas.
The heavy distillates recovered by vacuum distillation can be converted into lubricating oils by a variety of processes. The most common of these is called solvent extraction. In one version of this process the heavy distillate is washed with a liquid which does not dissolve in it but which dissolves (and so extracts) the non-lubricating oil components out of it. Another version uses a liquid which does not dissolve in it but which causes the non-lubricating oil components to precipitate (as an extract) from it. Other processes exist which remove impurities by adsorption onto a highly porous solid or which remove any waxes that may be present by causing them to crystallise and precipitate out.

Reforming

Reforming is a process which uses heat, pressure and a catalyst (usually containing platinum) to bring about chemical reactions which upgrade naphthas into high octane petrol and petrochemical feedstock. The naphthas are hydrocarbon mixtures containing many paraffins and naphthenes. In Australia, this naphtha feedstock comes from the crudes oil distillation or catalytic cracking processes, but overseas it also comes from thermal cracking and hydrocracking processes. Reforming converts a portion of these compounds to isoparaffins and aromatics, which are used to blend higher octane petrol.

• paraffins are converted to isoparaffins
• paraffins are converted to naphthenes
• naphthenes are converted to aromatics

e.g.

	catalyst
heptane	->	toluene	+	hydrogen
	C7H16	->	C7H8	+	4H2

	catalyst
cyclohexane	->	benzene	+	hydrogen
	C6H12	->	C6H6	+	3H2

Cracking

Cracking processes break down heavier hydrocarbon molecules (high boiling point oils) into lighter products such as petrol and diesel. These processes include catalytic cracking, thermal cracking and hydrocracking.

e.g.

A typical reaction:

	catalyst
	C16H34	->	C8H18	+	C8H16

Catalytic cracking is used to convert heavy hydrocarbon fractions obtained by vacuum distillation into a mixture of more useful products such as petrol and light fuel oil. In this process, the feedstock undergoes a chemical breakdown, under controlled heat (450 - 500^oC) and pressure, in the presence of a catalyst - a substance which promotes the reaction without itself being chemically changed. Small pellets of silica - alumina or silica - magnesia have proved to be the most effective catalysts.

The cracking reaction yields petrol, LPG, unsaturated olefin compounds, cracked gas oils, a liquid residue called cycle oil, light gases and a solid coke residue. Cycle oil is recycled to cause further breakdown and the coke, which forms a layer on the catalyst, is removed by burning. The other products are passed through a fractionator to be separated and separately processed.

Fluid catalytic cracking uses a catalyst in the form of a very fine powder which flows like a liquid when agitated by steam, air or vapour. Feedstock entering the process immediately meets a stream of very hot catalyst and vaporises. The resulting vapours keep the catalyst fluidised as it passes into the reactor, where the cracking takes place and where it is fluidised by the hydrocarbon vapour. The catalyst next passes to a steam stripping section where most of the volatile hydrocarbons are removed. It then passes to a regenerator vessel where it is fluidised by a mixture of air and the products of combustion which are produced as the coke on the catalyst is burnt off. The catalyst then flows back to the reactor. The catalyst thus undergoes a continuous circulation between the reactor, stripper and regenerator sections.

The catalyst is usually a mixture of aluminium oxide and silica. Most recently, the introduction of synthetic zeolite catalysts has allowed much shorter reaction times and improved yields and octane numbers of the cracked gasolines.

Thermal cracking uses heat to break down the residue from vacuum distillation. The lighter elements produced from this process can be made into distillate fuels and petrol. Cracked gases are converted to petrol blending components by alkylation or polymerisation. Naphtha is upgraded to high quality petrol by reforming. Gas oil can be used as diesel fuel or can be converted to petrol by hydrocracking. The heavy residue is converted into residual oil or coke which is used in the manufacture of electrodes, graphite and carbides.

This process is the oldest technology and is not used in Australia.

Hydrocracking can increase the yield of petrol components, as well as being used to produce light distillates. It produces no residues, only light oils. Hydrocracking is catalytic cracking in the presence of hydrogen. The extra hydrogen saturates, or hydrogenates, the chemical bonds of the cracked hydrocarbons and creates isomers with the desired characteristics. Hydrocracking is also a treating process, because the hydrogen combines with contaminants such as sulphur and nitrogen, allowing them to be removed.

Gas oil feed is mixed with hydrogen, heated, and sent to a reactor vessel with a fixed bed catalyst, where cracking and hydrogenation take place. Products are sent to a fractionator to be separated. The hydrogen is recycled. Residue from this reaction is mixed again with hydrogen, reheated, and sent to a second reactor for further cracking under higher temperatures and pressures.

In addition to cracked naphtha for making petrol, hydrocracking yields light gases useful for refinery fuel, or alkylation as well as components for high quality fuel oils, lube oils and petrochemical feedstocks.

Following the cracking processes it is necessary to build or rearrange some of the lighter hydrocarbon molecules into high quality petrol or jet fuel blending components or into petrochemicals. The former can be achieved by several chemical process such as alkylation and isomerisation.

Alkylation

Olefins such as propylene and butylene are produced by catalytic and thermal cracking. Alkylation refers to the chemical bonding of these light molecules with isobutane to form larger branched-chain molecules (isoparaffins) that make high octane petrol.

Olefins and isobutane are mixed with an acid catalyst and cooled. They react to form alkylate, plus some normal butane, isobutane and propane. The resulting liquid is neutralised and separated in a series of distillation columns. Isobutane is recycled as feed and butane and propane sold as liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

e.g.

			catalyst
isobutane	+	butylene	->	isooctane
	C4H10	+	C4H8	->	C8H18

Isomerisation

Isomerisation refers to chemical rearrangement of straight-chain hydrocarbons (paraffins), so that they contain branches attached to the main chain (isoparaffins). This is done for two reasons:

• they create extra isobutane feed for alkylation
• they improve the octane of straight run pentanes and hexanes and hence make them into better petrol blending components.

Isomerisation is achieved by mixing normal butane with a little hydrogen and chloride and allowed to react in the presence of a catalyst to form isobutane, plus a small amount of normal butane and some lighter gases. Products are separated in a fractionator. The lighter gases are used as refinery fuel and the butane recycled as feed.

Pentanes and hexanes are the lighter components of petrol. Isomerisation can be used to improve petrol quality by converting these hydrocarbons to higher octane isomers. The process is the same as for butane isomerisation.

Polymerisation
Under pressure and temperature, over an acidic catalyst, light unsaturated hydrocarbon molecules react and combine with each other to form larger hydrocarbon molecules. Such process can be used to react butenes (olefin molecules with four carbon atoms) with iso-butane (branched paraffin molecules, or isoparaffins, with four carbon atoms) to obtain a high octane olefinic petrol blending component called polymer gasoline.

Hydrotreating and sulphur plants

A number of contaminants are found in crude oil. As the fractions travel through the refinery processing units, these impurities can damage the equipment, the catalysts and the quality of the products. There are also legal limits on the contents of some impurities, like sulphur, in products.

Hydrotreating is one way of removing many of the contaminants from many of the intermediate or final products. In the hydrotreating process, the entering feedstock is mixed with hydrogen and heated to 300 - 380^oC. The oil combined with the hydrogen then enters a reactor loaded with a catalyst which promotes several reactions:

• hydrogen combines with sulphur to form hydrogen sulphide (H₂S)
• nitrogen compounds are converted to ammonia
• any metals contained in the oil are deposited on the catalyst
• some of the olefins, aromatics or naphthenes become saturated with hydrogen to become paraffins and some cracking takes place, causing the creation of some methane, ethane, propane and butanes.

Sulphur recovery plants

The hydrogen sulphide created from hydrotreating is a toxic gas that needs further treatment. The usual process involves two steps:

• the removal of the hydrogen sulphide gas from the hydrocarbon stream
• the conversion of hydrogen sulphide to elemental sulphur, a non-toxic and useful chemical.

Solvent extraction, using a solution of diethanolamine (DEA) dissolved in water, is applied to separate the hydrogen sulphide gas from the process stream. The hydrocarbon gas stream containing the hydrogen sulphide is bubbled through a solution of diethanolamine solution (DEA) under high pressure, such that the hydrogen sulphide gas dissolves in the DEA. The DEA and hydrogen mixture is the heated at a low pressure and the dissolved hydrogen sulphide is released as a concentrated gas stream which is sent to another plant for conversion into sulphur.

Conversion of the concentrated hydrogen sulphide gas into sulphur occurs in two stages.

1. Combustion of part of the H₂S stream in a furnace, producing sulphur dioxide (SO₂) water (H₂O) and sulphur (S).

2H2S

+

2O2

->

SO2

+

S

+

2H2O

2. Reaction of the remainder of the H₂S with the combustion products in the presence of a catalyst. The H₂S reacts with the SO₂ to form sulphur.

2H2S

+

2O2

->

3S

+

2H2O

As the reaction products are cooled the sulphur drops out of the reaction vessel in a molten state. Sulphur can be stored and shipped in either a molten or solid state.

CRUDE  OIL  ATMOSPHERIC  DISTILLATION  PROCESS:

              The crude oil distillation unit (CDU) is the first processing unit in virtually all petroleum refineries. The CDU distills the incoming crude oil into various fractions of different boiling ranges, each of which are then processed further in the other refinery processing units. The CDU is often referred to as the atmospheric distillation unit because it operates at slightly above atmospheric pressure.

Below is a schematic flow diagram of a typical crude oil distillation unit. The incoming crude oil is preheated by exchanging heat with some of the hot, distilled fractions and other streams. It is then desalted to remove inorganic salts (primarily sodium chloride).

Following the desalter, the crude oil is further heated by exchanging heat with some of the hot, distilled fractions and other streams. It is then heated in a fuel-fired furnace (fired heater) to a temperature of about 398 °C and routed into the bottom of the distillation unit.

The cooling and condensing of the distillation tower overhead is provided partially by exchanging heat with the incoming crude oil and partially by either an air-cooled or water-cooled condenser. Additional heat is removed from the distillation column by a pumparound system as shown in the diagram below.

VACCUM  DISTILLATION  UNIT:

                            Vacuum distillation is a method of distillation whereby the pressure above the liquid mixture to be distilled is reduced to less than its vapor pressure (usually less than atmospheric pressure) causing evaporation of the most volatile liquid(s) (those with the lowest boiling points). This distillation method works on the principle that boiling occurs when the vapor pressure of a liquid exceeds the ambient pressure. Vacuum distillation is used with or without heating the mixture.

Petroleum crude oil is a complex mixture of hundreds of different hydrocarbon compounds generally having from 3 to 60carbon atoms per molecule, although there may be small amounts of hydrocarbons outside that range. The refining of crude oil begins with distilling the incoming crude oil in a so-called atmospheric distillation column operating at pressures slightly above atmospheric pressure.

In distilling the crude oil, it is important not to subject the crude oil to temperatures above 370 to 380 °C because the high molecular weight components in the crude oil will undergo thermal cracking and form petroleum coke at temperatures above that. Formation of coke would result in plugging the tubes in the furnace that heats the feed stream to the crude oil distillation column. Plugging would also occur in the piping from the furnace to the distillation column as well as in the column itself.

The constraint imposed by limiting the column inlet crude oil to a temperature of more than 370 to 380 °C yields a residual oil from the bottom of the atmospheric distillation column consisting entirely of hydrocarbons that boil above 370 to 380 °C.

To further distill the residual oil from the atmospheric distillation column, the distillation must be performed at absolute pressures as low as 10 to 40 mmHg (also referred to as Torr) so as to limit the operating temperature to less than 370 to 380 °C.

Image 1 is a photograph of a large vacuum distillation column in a petroleum refinery and Image 2 is a process diagram of a petroleum refinery vacuum distillation column that depicts the internals of the column.

The 10 to 40 mmHg absolute pressure in a vacuum distillation column increases the volume of vapor formed per volume of liquid distilled. The result is that such columns have very large diameters.

Distillation columns such those in Images 1 and 2, may have diameters of 15 meters or more, heights ranging up to about 50 meters, and feed rates ranging up to about 25,400 cubic meters per day (160,000 barrels per day).

The vacuum distillation column internals must provide good vapor-liquid contacting while, at the same time, maintaining a very low pressure increase from the top of the column top to the bottom. Therefore, the vacuum column uses distillation trays only where withdrawing products from the side of the column (referred to as side draws). Most of the column uses packing material for the vapor-liquid contacting because such packing has a lower pressure drop than distillation trays. This packing material can be either structured sheet metal or randomly dumped packing such as Raschig rings.

The absolute pressure of 10 to 40 mmHg in the vacuum column is most often achieved by using multiple stages of steam jet ejectors. 

HYDRO CRACKING:

The hydrocracking process is used to convert waxy distillate and deasphalted oil (DAO) into kerosine and gasoil by breaking down some of their constituents. The process is carried out in two stages, the first to reduce the amount of nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen impurities that may Long-chain alkanes of more than twenty carbon atoms each the second stage catalyst, and the second to continue the process of cracking, hydrogenating and isomerising the compounds in the oil. The reactions occurring are denitrogenation, desulfurisation, deoxygenation, hydrogenation, hydrocracking, isomerisation, all of which are exothermic and all of which, except for isomerisation, consume hydrogen. The heat released is absorbed by injecting cold hydrogen quench gas between the catalyst beds. Without the quench the heat released would generate high temperatures and rapid reactions leading to greater heat release and an eventual runaway.

 FLUID  CATALYTIC  CRACKING  UNIT:

                            Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is the most important conversion process used in petroleum refineries. It is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils to more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products. Cracking of petroleum hydrocarbons was originally done by thermal cracking, which has been almost completely replaced by catalytic cracking because it produces more gasoline with a higher octane rating. It also produces byproduct gases that are more olefinic, and hence more valuable, than those produced by thermal cracking.

The feedstock to an FCC is usually that portion of the crude oil that has an initial boiling point of 340 °C or higher at atmospheric pressure and an average molecular weight ranging from about 200 to 600 or higher. This portion of crude oil is often referred to as heavy gas oil. The FCC process vaporizes and breaks the long-chain molecules of the high-boiling hydrocarbon liquids into much shorter molecules by contacting the feedstock, at high temperature and moderate pressure, with a fluidized powdered catalyst.

In effect, refineries use fluid catalytic cracking to correct the imbalance between the market demand for gasoline and the excess of heavy, high boiling range products resulting from the distillation of crude oil.

As of 2006, FCC units were in operation at 400 petroleum refineries worldwide and about one-third of the crude oil refined in those refineries is processed in an FCC to produce high-octane gasoline and fuel oils.  During  2007, the FCC units in the United States processed a total of 5,300,000 barrels (834,300,000 litres) per day of feedstock and FCC units worldwide processed about twice that amount.

The modern FCC units are all continuous processes which operate 24 hours a day for as much as 2 to 3 years between shutdowns for routine maintenance.

There are a number of different proprietary designs that have been developed for modern FCC units. Each design is available under a license that must be purchased from the design developer by any petroleum refining company desiring to construct and operate an FCC of a given design.

Basically, there are two different configurations for an FCC unit: the "stacked" type where the reactor and the catalyst regenerator are contained in a single vessel with the reactor above the catalyst regenerator and the "side-by-side" type where the reactor and catalyst regenerator are in two separate vessels. These are the major FCC designers and licensors:

Side-by-side configuration:

§  CB&I

§  ExxonMobil Research and Engineering (EMRE)

§  Shell Global Solutions International

§  Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation (The Shaw Group) / Institut Francais Petrole (IFP)

§  Universal Oil Products (UOP) — currently fully owned subsidiary of Honeywell

Stacked configuration:

§  Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR)

Each of the proprietary design licensors claims to have unique features and advantages. A complete discussion of the relative advantages of each of the processes is well beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that all of the licensors have designed and constructed FCC units that have operated quite satisfactorily.

Reactor and Regenerator

The reactor and regenerator is considered to be the heart of the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit. The schematic flow diagram of a typical modern FCC unit in Figure 1 below is based upon the "side-by-side" configuration. The preheated high-boiling petroleum feedstock (at about 315 to 430 °C) consisting of long-chain hydrocarbon molecules is combined with recycle slurry oil from the bottom of the distillation column and injected into the catalyst riser where it is vaporized and cracked into smaller molecules of vapor by contact and mixing with the very hot powdered catalyst from the regenerator. All of the cracking reactions take place in the catalyst riser within a period of 2-4 seconds. The hydrocarbon vapors "fluidize" the powdered catalyst and the mixture of hydrocarbon vapors and catalyst flows upward to enter the reactor at a temperature of about 535 °C and a pressure of about 1.72barg.

The reactor is in fact merely a vessel in which the cracked product vapors are: (a) separated from the so-called spent catalyst by flowing through a set of two-stage cyclones within the reactor and (b) the spent catalyst flows downward through a steam stripping section to remove any hydrocarbon vapors before the spent catalyst returns to the catalyst regenerator. The flow of spent catalyst to the regenerator is regulated by a slide valve in the spent catalyst line.

Since the cracking reactions produce some carbonaceous material (referred to as coke) that deposits on the catalyst and very quickly reduces the catalyst reactivity, the catalyst is regenerated by burning off the deposited coke with air blown into the regenerator. The regenerator operates at a temperature of about 715 °C and a pressure of about 2.41 barg. The combustion of the coke is exothermic and it produces a large amount of heat that is partially absorbed by the regenerated catalyst and provides the heat required for the vaporization of the feedstock and the endothermic cracking reactions that take place in the catalyst riser. For that reason, FCC units are often referred to as being 'heat balanced'.

The hot catalyst (at about 715 °C) leaving the regenerator flows into a catalyst withdrawal well where any entrained combustion flue gases are allowed to escape and flow back into the upper part to the regenerator. The flow of regenerated catalyst to the feedstock injection point below the catalyst riser is regulated by a slide valve in the regenerated catalyst line. The hot flue gas exits the regenerator after passing through multiple sets of two-stage cyclones that remove entrained catalyst from the flue gas,

The amount of catalyst circulating between the regenerator and the reactor amounts to about 5 kg per kg of feedstock, which is equivalent to about 4.66 kg per litre of feedstock. Thus, an FCC unit processing 75,000 barrels per day (11,900 m³/d) will circulate about 55,900 metric tons per day of catalyst.

CATALYSTS

Modern FCC catalysts are fine powders with a bulk density of 0.80 to 0.96 g/cc and having a particle size distribution ranging from 10 to 150 μm and an average particle size of 60 to 100 μm. The design and operation of an FCC unit is largely dependent upon the chemical and physical properties of the catalyst. The desirable properties of an FCC catalyst are:

§  Good stability to high temperature and to steam

§  High activity

§  Large pore sizes

§  Good resistance to attrition

§  Low coke production

Regenerator flue gas

Depending on the choice of FCC design, the combustion in the regenerator of the coke on the spent catalyst may or may not be complete combustion to carbon dioxide CO₂. The combustion air flow is controlled so as to provide the desired ratio of carbon monoxide (CO) to carbon dioxide for each specific FCC design.

In the design shown in Figure 1, the coke has only been partially combusted to CO₂. The combustion flue gas (containing CO and CO₂) at 715 °C and at a pressure of 2.41 barg is routed through a secondary catalyst separator containing swirl tubes designed to remove 70 to 90 percent of the particulates in the flue gas leaving the regenerator. This is required to prevent erosion damage to the blades in the turbo-expander that the flue gas is next routed through.

The expansion of flue gas through a turbo-expander provides sufficient power to drive the regenerator's combustion air compressor. The electrical motor-generator can consume or produce electrical power. If the expansion of the flue gas does not provide enough power to drive the air compressor, the electric motor/generator provides the needed additional power. If the flue gas expansion provides more power than needed to drive the air compressor, than the electric motor/generator converts the excess power into electric power and exports it to the refinery's electrical system.

The expanded flue gas is then routed through a steam-generating boiler (referred to as a CO boiler) where the carbon monoxide in the flue gas is burned as fuel to provide steam for use in the refinery as well as to comply with any applicable environmental regulatory limits on carbon monoxide emissions.

The flue gas is finally processed through an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) to remove residual particulate matter to comply with any applicable environmental regulations regarding particulate emissions. The ESP removes particulates in the size range of 2 to 20 microns from the flue gas.

The steam turbine in the flue gas processing system (shown in the above diagram) is used to drive the regenerator's combustion air compressor during start-ups of the FCC unit until there is sufficient combustion flue gas to take over that task.

EMISSION CONTROL IN CPCL:

                       Emission standards are requirements that set specific limits to the amount of pollutants that can be released into the environment. Many emissions standards focus on regulating pollutants released by automobiles (motor cars) and other powered vehicles but they can also regulate emissions from industry, power plants, small equipment such as lawn mowers and diesel generators. Frequent policy alternatives to emissions standards are technology standards (which mandate Standards generally regulate the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO_x), sulfur oxides, particulate matter (PM) or soot, carbon monoxide (CO), or volatile hydrocarbons (see carbon dioxide equivalent).

The first Indian emission regulations were idle emission limits which became effective in 1989. These idle emission regulations were soon replaced by mass emission limits for both petrol (1991) and diesel (1992) vehicles, which were gradually tightened during the 1990s. Since the year 2000, India started adopting European emission and fuel regulations for four-wheeled light-duty and for heavy-dc. Indian own emission regulations still apply to two- and three-wheeled vehicles.

Current requirement is that all transport vehicles carry a fitness certificate that is renewed each year after the first two years of new vehicle registration.

On October 6, 2003, the National Auto Fuel Policy has been announced, which envisages a phased program for introducing Euro 2 - 4 emission and fuel regulations by 2010. The implementation schedule of EU emission standards in India is summarized in Table 1.

Table 1: Indian Emission Standards (4-Wheel Vehicles)
Standard	Reference	Date	Region
India 2000	Euro 1	2000	Nationwide
Bharat Stage II	Euro 2	2001	NCR*, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai
		2003.04	NCR*, 12 Cities†
		2005.04	Nationwide
Bharat Stage III	Euro 3	2005.04	NCR*, 12 Cities†
		2010.04	Nationwide
Bharat Stage IV	Euro 4	2010.04	NCR*, 12 Cities†
* National Capital Region (Delhi) † Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Surat, Kanpur, Lucknow, Sholapur, and Agra

The above standards apply to all new 4-wheel vehicles sold and registered in the respective regions. In addition, the National Auto Fuel Policy introduces certain emission requirements for interstate buses with routes originating or terminating in Delhi or the other 10 cities.

For 2-and 3-wheelers, Bharat Stage II (Euro 2) will be applicable from April 1, 2005 and Stage III (Euro 3) standards would come in force preferably from April 1, 2008, but not later than April 1, 2010.

CONCLUSION:

Refiners have several options to fulfill higher industrial gas needs. Of course, gas production plants can be bought from competent suppliers. That necessarily means that the complete investment shows up in the balance sheet of the refinery. In addition, operation and maintenance costs have to be borne by the refinery.

All this is conventional procedure with advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage certainly is that refiners are not specialized in gas plant operation. Therefore reliability of the plants tends to be lower than optimum and the cost higher. But there is an alternative which gains more and more friends among the refining community: "on site supply."

The basic idea behind on site supply is that a gas company builds, owns, and operates the gas production plant for the refinery and the refiner receives the gas as a utility so that it can concentrate on its core business, making fuel.