Special Tech.

2
Petrochemical Technology –
Fundamentals of Refineries
 Chapter - 2
• Crude distillation unit (CDU) is at the front-end of the refinery, also known as topping
unit, or atmospheric distillation unit. It receives high flow rates hence its size and
operating cost are the largest in the refinery.
• Many crude distillation units are designed to handle a variety of crude oil types. The
design of the unit is based on a light crude scenario and a heavy crude scenario.
• The unit should run satisfactorily at about 60% of the design feed rate. Seasonal
temperature variation should be incorporated in the design because changes in the cut
point of gasoline can vary by 20oC (36oF) between summer and winter.
• The capacity of the CDU ranges from 10,000 barrels per stream day (BPSD) or 1400
metric tons per day (tpd) to 400,000 BPSD (56,000 metric tpd).
• The economics of refining favours larger units. The unit produces raw products which
have to be processed in downstream unit to produce products of certain specifications.
• This involves the removal of undesirable components like sulphur, nitrogen and metal
compounds, and limiting the aromatic contents.
Typical products from the unit are:
• Gases
• Light straight run naphtha (also called light gasoline or light naphtha)
• Heavy gasoline (also called military jet fuel)
• Kerosene (also called light distillate or jet fuel)
• Middle distillates called diesel or light gas oil (LGO)
• Heavy distillates called atmospheric gas oil
(AGO) or heavy gas oil (HGO)
• Crude column bottoms called atmospheric
residue or topped crude.

Figure: Process flow diagram of an atmospheric distillation unit

Figure: A simplified crude distillation unit flowsheet
Figure: A detailed crude distillation unit flowsheet
• The process flow diagram of a typical crude distillation unit is shown in previous figures.
• Crude oil is pumped from storage tanks where it is freed from sediments and free water by
gravity.
• It goes through a series of heat exchangers where it is heated with hot products coming out
from the distillation column and by the exchange with heat from the pumparound liquid
streams. The temperature of the crude feed can reach 120–150 °C.
• The crude oil contains salt in the form of dissolved salt in the tiny droplet of water which
forms a water-in oil emulsion. This water cannot be separated by gravity or through
mechanical means. It is separated through electrostatic water separation. This process is
called desalting.
• The crude is further heated in product heat exchangers. The preheating of the crude using
the hot products cools down the products to the desired temperature for pumping to the
storage tanks. This is essential for the economics of the unit in terms of energy
conservation and utilization.
• Usually the preheating is not enough, as the crude has to be partially vaporized to the
extent that all products, except for the atmospheric residue have to be in the vapour phase
when the crude enters the atmospheric distillation column.
• Thus a furnace is required to boost the temperature to between 330 and 385 °C depending
on the crude composition.
• The partially vaporized crude is transferred to the flash zone of the column located at a
point lower down the column and above what is called the stripping section.
• The main column is typically 50 m high and is equipped with about 30–50 trays. The vapour
goes up in tremendous amounts and at a high flow rate, necessitating a large diameter
column above the flash zone.
• At the bottom of the stripping section, steam is injected into the column to strip the
atmospheric residue of any light hydrocarbon and to lower the partial pressure of the
hydrocarbon vapours in the flash zone.
• This has the effect of lowering the boiling point of the hydrocarbons and causing more
hydrocarbons to boil and go up the column to be eventually condensed and withdrawn as
side streams.
• As the hot vapours from the flash zone rise through the trays up the column, they are
contacted by the colder reflux down the column.
• In the overhead condenser, the vapours are condensed and part of the light naphtha is
returned to the column as reflux.
• Further reflux is provided by several pumparound streams along the column.
• For effective separation heat has to be removed from the tower, in this case, by the
overhead condenser and several pumparound streams along the tower length.
• The side draw products are usually stripped to control their initial boiling point. The
strippers contain several trays and the stripping is done using steam at the bottom of the
stripper or reboiler type side stream strippers.
• The end boiling point of the side stream is controlled by the flow rate of the side stream
product.
• The overhead vapour is condensed at the top of the tower by heat exchange with the cool
crude coming into the unit and by air and cooling water.
• From the column, other products are withdrawn, such as gases, light straight run naptha,
heavy straight run naphtha, kerosene or jet fuel, LGO and HGO. All of these products are
withdrawn above the feed tray.
• The atmospheric residue is withdrawn from the bottom of the column.
• Column Pressure: The pressure at the bottom of ADU (or CDU) column is controlled by the
back pressure of the overhead reflux drum at about 3 – 5 psig.
• The top tray pressure is 6 –10 psig higher than the reflux drum. The flash zone pressure is
usually 5 – 8 psig higher than the top tray.
• Overhead Temperature: The overhead temperature must be controlled to be 14–17 °C
higher than the dew point temperature for the water at the column overhead pressure so
that no liquid water is condensed in the column.
• This is to prevent corrosion due to the hydrogen chloride dissolved in liquid water
(hydrochloric acid).
• A crude column is typically operated at 80% of designed capacity. The capacity of the
column is limited by the vapour flow rate with a velocity between 0.76 and 1.07 m/s.
• The vapour flow rate increases as the vapours rise from the flash zone to the overhead.
• To keep the vapour velocity within the limits mentioned above, the pumparounds, which
are installed at several points along the column, extract heat from the column.
• This results in condensing the rising vapours and reducing the vapour velocity.
Reflux arrangements
• The reflux arrangements in atmospheric crude distillation unit
are classified as:
1. Top tray reflux.
2. Pump back reflux.
3. Pumparound reflux.
• Top tray reflux: This reflux takes place at the top of the tray, and
the reflux is cooled and returned to the tower. Figure: Top tray reflux arrangement

• If no reflux is provided to any other plate. Operating the tower only with top reflux has
some disadvantages.
• The heat input to the column is through heated crude at the bottom, and removal is from
the top. This creates a large traffic of vapor that requires a larger tower diameter.
• Obviously the reflux is not proper and quality of fractions is not satisfactory. The recovery
of heat is less efficient, but the unit is simple in design and operation. In practice this type
of arrangement is not preferred.
• Pump back reflux: In this case, the reflux is provided at
regular intervals as this helps every plate to act as a true
fractionator.
• The vapor load on the tower is fairly uniform and requires
a smaller column size.
• The rejected heat at the reflux locations can be effectively
utilized.
Figure: Pump back reflux arrangement
• However, the design and operation of such towers are costly,
but provides excellent service.
• Pump around reflux (circulating reflux or internal reflux): In
this arrangement, the reflux from a lower plate is taken,
cooled and fed into the column at a higher level by 2 to 3
plates.
• The functions of the Pump around cooling are: 1. To reduce
the vapor flow rate through the column; 2. To improve the Figure: Pump around reflux arrangement
efficiency of the crude preheat train by allowing heat recovery.
• Pump back reflux: In this case, the reflux is provided at
regular intervals as this helps every plate to act as a true
fractionator.
• The vapor load on the tower is fairly uniform and requires
a smaller column size.
• The rejected heat at the reflux locations can be effectively
utilized.
Figure: Pump back reflux arrangement
• However, the design and operation of such towers are costly,
but provides excellent service.
• Pumparound reflux (circulating reflux or internal reflux): In
this arrangement, the reflux from a lower plate is taken,
cooled and fed into the column at a higher level by 2 to 3
plates.
• This pumparound cooling accomplishes a number of tasks.
Figure: Pump around reflux arrangement
• First, the cold liquid condenses more of the rising vapours thus providing more reflux to
compensate for the withdrawal of products from the column.
• Second, heat is removed from the column at higher temperatures. Thus the thermal
efficiency of the column is improved and the required furnace duty is reduced.
• Third, pumparound streams reduce the vapour flow rate throughout the column.
Therefore, the required column is smaller than what would otherwise be required if
pumparound streams where not there.
• The drawback to using more pumparound streams is that they tend to reduce the
fractionation because a more fractionated liquid is mixed after cooling with a less
fractionated liquid a few trays above.
• Side stripping column: The liquid side-stream withdrawn from the tower will contain
low-boiling components which lower the flashpoint.
• These light ends are stripped from each side-stream in a separate small stripping tower
containing four to ten trays with steam introduced under the bottom tray.
 • The steam and stripped light ends are vented
back into the vapor zone of the main column
above the corresponding side-draw tray.
• Bottom of tower: Although crude towers do not
use reboilers normally, several trays are generally
incorporated below the flash
zone to vaporize the feed as
well as to reduce the partial
pressure of hydrocarbons.

Figure: Side stream stripping column

Figure: Tower bottom arrangement

• Pre-flash column
• To expand crude capacity, the most used
technique is to introduce a pre-flash column
before the crude heater.
• The crude oil after preheating in the hot
products and pumparound heat
exchangers is flashed into a column where
the lightest products are removed.
• The bottoms from the pre-flash column are Figure: Pre-flash column arrangements

introduced into the crude heater and then to the crude column.
• The amounts of the light ends in the crude are now less, and this reduces the vapour
loading up the column.
• Pre-flash columns are also introduced in the original design of the CDU when the crude
oil is light, and when it contains a lot of light ends in the naphtha range.
• Gasoline distillation and gas fractionation
• The unit separates the wide range gasoline coming from the atmospheric distillation
unit into its various components:
1. Fuel gas
2. Liquefied gases
(propane and butane).
3. Light gasoline to gasoline
pool or isomerization.
4. Heavy gasoline to the
catalytic reforming unit.

Figure: Gasoline distillation and gas fractionation flow scheme

• This set up is usually chosen when the unit processes only wide range gasoline from the
crude distillation unit.
• The gasoline distillation and gas fractionation unit consists of a series of columns that
work at different pressures.
• The first column is the stabilization column or debutanizer. It separates an overhead cut
made up of all the components lighter than butane, plus butane itself, from a bottom
cut called stabilized wide range gasoline.
• The bottom cut has a low enough vapor pressure so that it can be stored.
• The overhead cut is sent to a second column called a deethanizer, which separates
liquefied petroleum gases (propane and butane) recovered at the bottom from the
more volatile components (methane, ethane etc.)
• The stabilized wide range gasoline is usually fractioned into two cuts, light gasoline and
heavy naphtha in a gasoline splitter.
• Lastly, the liquefied petroleum gases are fractioned in a depropanizer separating
propane from butanes, which are recovered from the bottom.
Table: Typical operating conditions of gasoline distillation and gas fractionation
Summary
• Crude distillation process
• Atmospheric distillation unit operating parameters
• Types of reflux
• Auxiliary units associated with distillation column
• Gasoline distillation and gas fractionation process