Unit Process

1. Identify the Unit Process and Unit Operation in the Oil Refinery Industry.

Process flow diagram of a typical oil refinery industry.

Figure. 1

Petroleum refining industry unit operations and unit process can be separated into typical five
areas:

1. Fractionation (distillation) is the separation of crude oil in atmospheric and vacuum

distillation towers by the difference in their boiling point into different groups of
hydrocarbon compounds.

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 Unit Process

2. Conversion Processes change the size or structure of hydrocarbon molecules. These

processes include: :
i. Decomposition by thermal cracking and catalytic cracking
ii. Unification of compounds through alkylation and polymerization
iii. Alteration with isomerization and catalytic reforming

3. Treatment Processes to prepare hydrocarbon for processing and to prepare finished

products. It includes both chemical and physical change of the molecules. Treatment
may include removal or separation of aromatics and naphthenes, impurities and
undesirable contaminants e.g. dissolving, absorption, or precipitation using a variety
and combination of processes including desalting, drying, hydrodesulfurizing, solvent
refining, sweetening, solvent extraction, and solvent dewaxing.

4. Formulating and Blending is the process of mixing and combining the different
hydrocarbon fractions, and other components to produce finished products..

5. Other Refining Operations include:

i. light-ends recovery;
ii. sour-water stripping;
iii. solid waste, process-water and wastewater treatment;
iv. cooling, storage and handling and product movement;
v. hydrogen production;
vi. acid and tail-gas treatment;
vii. and sulfur recovery.

Unit Operation are following are in Figure 1 :

1. Desalter unit separates the salt from the crude oil before it enters the atmospheric
distillation unit.
2. Atmospheric Distillation distills crude oil into fractions. It mostly used under
atmospheric pressure before 400 C temperature due to low stability of compounds.

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 Unit Process

3. Vacuum Distillation on the residual bottoms of atmospheric distillation product. It use

the vacuum to lower the boiling point of some compounds for distillation which can
not be separated by the atmospheric distillation.
4. Naphtha Hydro treater unit uses hydrogen to desulfurize naphtha from atmospheric
distillation. We must hydro treat the naphtha before sending to a Catalytic Reformer
unit.
5. Catalytic Reformer unit is used to convert the naphtha-boiling range molecules into
higher octane reformate. An important byproduct of a reformer is hydrogen released
during the catalyst reaction. The hydrogen is used either in the hydro treaters or the
hydrocracker.

Unit Process are following are in Figure 1:

1. Distillate Hydrotreater unit desulfurizes distillates (such as diesel) after atmospheric

distillation.
2. Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC) unit change heavier fractions into lighter, more valuable
products.
3. Hydrocracker unit uses hydrogen molecule to change heavier fractions into lighter
fractions for more valuable products.
4. Visbreaking unit breaks residual oils by thermally cracking them into lighter molecules
like gasoline.
5. Merox unit treats LPG, kerosene or jet fuel by oxidizing mercaptans to organic
disulfides.
6. Coking units process very heavy residual oils into gasoline and diesel fuel, leaving
petroleum coke as a residual product.
7. Alkylation unit produces high-octane component for gasoline blending.
8. Dimerization unit converts olefins into higher-octane gasoline blending components.
9. Isomerization unit converts linear molecules to higher-octane branched molecules for
blending into gasoline or feed to alkylation units.
10. Steam reforming unit produces hydrogen for the hydrotreaters or hydrocracker.
11. Amine gas treater, Claus unit, and tail gas treatment for converting hydrogen sulfide
from hydro desulfurization into elemental sulfur.
12. Solvent refining units use solvent such as cresol or furfural to remove unwanted, mainly
asphaltenic materials from lubricating oil stock.
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 Unit Process

13. Solvent dewaxing units remove the heavy waxy constituents petrolatum from vacuum
distillation products.
14. Storage tanks for crude oil and finished products, usually cylindrical, with some sort of
vapor emission control and surrounded by an earthen berm to contain spills.

Products are obtained in the Oil Refinery are shown in the schematic below:

References:
http://uma.ac.ir/files/site1/m_ghorbanpour_6ffe535/refinery_3.pdf
https://www.fkit.unizg.hr/_download/repository/PRPP_2013_Refinig_dis.pdf
http://www.idc-online.com/technical_references/pdfs/chemical_engineering/Oil_refinery.pdf