Crude Distillation Column

General Process

Crude distillation unit (CDU) or also known as atmospheric distillation unit is the first
process in refining sequence and is vital to the profitability of refinery operation. The objective
of the crude distillation unit is to make initial separation of crude oil into the desired fractions,
where the feedstock are distilled into various cuts of target boiling range or even separated into
individual hydrocarbon compounds. Typically, crude distillation unit produces butane and lighter
components, light and heavy straight run of naptha, kerosene, diesel, lubricating oil and vacuum
bottoms. The design of this unit processing is based on the raw crude oil feed into, either it light
crude scenario or heavy crude scenario.

Distillation concentrates the lower boiling points material towards the top of the tower.
The lowest boiling point product is the lower tower overhead vapors which are condensed as
distillated. Meanwhile, higher boiling point material is present further down the tower. Gravity
forces the liquid phase to flow down the tower. Additional intermediate boiling range streams are
withdrawn at various levels from the tower as side stream products. The highest temperature
boiling range component is the liquid product which is withdrawn at the bottom of the tower.

Conventional Distillation Unit For Petroleum Refining

First of all, the crude oil is pumped into the crude unit and it is passed into a first heat
exchanger zone which is consists a cluster of circulating hot oil pipeline in parallel configuration.
The heat supplied through the heat exchanger by hot oil circulating stream. The numbers of hot
oil circulating exchanger depend on the volume of crude oil pumped through the line. The hot oil
circulating streams are generated from the crude column, and the vacuum column in a
conventional manner.
The hot crude oil then passes into a first flash zone. Light hydrocarbon components are
vaporized due to high temperature of crude oil, and these vapors are separated from the liquid in
the first flash zone. The water is sprayed from the top of first flash zone, in order to water wash
the first flash vapor. The rising up of vapor will contact the down flowing water in order to
removes the water soluble contaminants which is then discharge into the crude column.
The downflowing water drop and the flashed crude liquid are then withdrawn out to the
desalter. The desalter purposed is to remove inorganic salts that contain in hot flashed liquid. The
obtained of these salts in further unit processing can cause plugging of heat exchanger, corrosion
of apparatus and many other problems.
The hot flash liquid crude, which is substantially free from contaminants are withdrawn
to the second heat exchanger zone, which is consist of a cluster circulating hot oil pipeline in
parallel configuration.
The heated liquid crude oil leaves second heat exchanger zone to the second flash zone.
At this moment, the temperature of liquid crude oil is so high that an amount of hexane and
heavier compound are vaporized. Next, the flashed liquid passed through the crude column
heater, in which it is utilize from combustion of gas oil to transfer the heat into a bank of tube by
convection and radiation. At this moment, the cracking of crude must be avoided because it can
cause deposition of carbon and tarry residues in the heater tubes, then further causes plugging in
bank tube.
The feed of flashed vapor from first flash column is located below the feed of liquid so
that can assist the stripping of the downflowing liquid and rising up vapor. The crude distillation
column operates as to produce a variety of hydrocarbon product factions. From the feed to the
top, atmospheric gas oil, diesel oil, kerosene and naptha are removed from the side of the crude
column at specific temperature and tray. A portion of the hydrocarbon that withdrawn from the
side of crude distillation is discharge as product and a portion of hydrocarbon is use as hot oil to
pre-heat crude oil at first heat exchanger zone before discharge back to the crude column as
reflux. An overhead product is withdrawn from the top of crude distillation column which is
containing light hydrocarbon gases such as methane, ethane, and propane. It the condensed for
further process.
The bottom crude oil is removed to the conventional vacuum distillation column. All
light vacuum gas oil is removed from the side of vacuum distillation column as light vacuum gas
oil product. Meanwhile heavy vacuum gas oil is remove through as heavy vacuum gas oil
product and one part is use as heated heavy vacuum gas oil for the second heat exchanger zone.
 Figure 1 : Conventional Distillation Unit

Progressive Distillation Column Unit for Petroleum Refining

Devos et al. (1987) was sdescribed that ‘the process consist in successively separating
increasingly heavy petroleum cuts as the head of a plurality of columns of a first series of
columns which feed individually each columns of the second series’. ‘By carrying out a
succession of progressive separations performed in a series of columns of small volume, more
efficient utilization of the recovery of heat is achieved’. This idea is illustrated by figure 2.

The main concept of progressive distillation is to loosely separate the light components
off the mixture in a primary sequence of columns, and to fully separate the resulting mixture in a
secondary sequence of columns. In other word is two direct sequences one feeding the other in a
special arrangement. After the initial separation, the arrangement bifurcates into two series of
columns. The overhead from the top series is withdrawn as a product stream, while the bottoms
travel to the next column in the series. The overhead from the bottom series is combined with the
bottoms from the top series, while the bottoms from the bottom series travel to the next column.
The process is repeated until the desired products are extracted from the top series of columns.
The final bottoms stream from the bottom series is residue.
Figure 2 : Possible Progressive Distillation Scheme

In the patent, there are seven eventual product, the top group are corresponding to naphta,
the follow by Gasoline and Kerosene, next by Diesel and gas oil and then vacuum distillates and
residue.

In the progressive distillation scheme, the separation are not sharp. In addition the lightest
component, portion of the second lightest component will be separated as well. This concepts is
more readily explained by Figurre 3. The first column removed all naptha and some kerosene in
the top stream, while the balance of kerosene and all heavier components flow to the second
column in the bottom series. This procedure is repeated until separation into the desired
components is complete.
 The fact that the progressive distillation produces several loose separation is one of its
advantages over the conventional distillation sequences. Because only loose separation are
performed, less utility heat is required to preheat the crude feed stream. Beside, in the
progressive distillation scheme, there is larger number of columns presence than the
conventional one, therefore a larger number of trays. The degree of separation is dependent on
numbers of trays and the heat added to the column, hence by adding more trays, less heat utility
is required.

Figure 3 : Demonstration of Progressive Distillation

Dobesh et al. (2008), in their study on a progressive distillation using a light crude feed, it
showed that progressive distillation can dramatically reduce the heat utility necessary for
distillation when compared with conventional distillation. Specifically, a hot utility saving of 9%
was calculated. But in another studied by Steven et al. (2009), it was discovered that progressive
distillation provided ni energetic benefit, however for heavy crude, progressive distillation
revealed a significant reduction in the hot utility compared to conventional distillation.
Economic Analysis

Dobesh et al. (2008) was discovered that, by using the prices of hydrocarbon products,
utility costs, cooling water and steam generation on that year, their analysis on progressive type
compare to conventional type distillation was simplified in table 2

Table 2 : Economic Result For Progressive Distillation Column