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Refinery
 
 
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A refinery is composed of a group of chemical engineering
Chemical engineering

Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with the application of physical science , with mathematics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms....
 unit processes and unit operation
Unit operation

In chemical engineering and related fields, a unit operation is a basic step in a process. For example in milk processing, homogenization, pasteurization, chilling, and packaging are each unit operations which are connected to create the overall process....
s used for refining
Refining

Refining is the process of purification of a chemical compound. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form....
 certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.

A typical oil refinery The image below is a schematic flow diagram
Process Flow diagram

A process flow diagram is a diagram commonly used in chemical engineering and process engineering to indicate the general flow of plant processes and equipment....
 of a typical oil refinery that depicts the various unit
Unit

Unit may refer to:In mathematics:* Unit vector, a vector with length equal to 1* Unit circle, the circle with radius equal to 1, centered at the origin...
 processes and the flow of intermediate product streams that occurs between the inlet crude oil feedstock and the final end products.






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A refinery is composed of a group of chemical engineering
Chemical engineering

Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with the application of physical science , with mathematics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms....
 unit processes and unit operation
Unit operation

In chemical engineering and related fields, a unit operation is a basic step in a process. For example in milk processing, homogenization, pasteurization, chilling, and packaging are each unit operations which are connected to create the overall process....
s used for refining
Refining

Refining is the process of purification of a chemical compound. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form....
 certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.

Types of refineries


The various types of refineries include:

  • Oil refinery
    Oil refinery

    An oil refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas....
    : Converts petroleum crude oil into high-octane
    Octane rating

    The octane rating is a measure of the resistance of gasoline and other fuels to detonation in spark plug internal combustion engines. High-performance engines typically have higher compression ratios and are therefore more prone to detonation, so they require higher octane fuel....
     motor fuel (gasoline
    Gasoline

    File:GasCan.jpgGasoline or petrol is a petroleum-derived liquid mixture, primarily used as fuel in internal combustion engines.It consists mostly of aliphatic hydrocarbons, enhanced with iso-octane or the aromatic hydrocarbons toluene and benzene to increase its octane rating....
    /petrol), diesel oil, liquefied petroleum gases (LPG), jet aircraft fuel, kerosene
    Kerosene

    Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid....
    , heating fuel oil
    Fuel oil

    Fuel oil is a fractional distillation obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash point of approximately and oi...
    s, lubricating oils, asphalt
    Asphalt

    Asphalt is a sticky, black and highly viscosity liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits sometimes termed asphaltum....
     and petroleum coke
    Petroleum coke

    Petroleum coke is a carbonaceous solid derived from oil refinery coker units or other cracking processes. Other Coke has traditionally been derived from coal....
    .
  • Sugar refinery
    Sugarcane

    Sugarcane is a genus of 6 to 37 species of tall perennial plant Poaceae , native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the Old World. They have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar and measure 2 to 6 meters tall....
    : Converts sugar
    Sugar

    Sugar is a class of edible crystalline substances, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose. Human taste buds interpret its flavor as sweet. Sugar as a basic food carbohydrate primarily comes from sugar cane and from sugar beet, but also appears in fruit, honey, sorghum, sugar maple , and in many other sources....
     cane and sugar beets into crystallized sugar and sugar syrups.
  • Natural gas processing
    Natural gas processing

    Natural gas processing plants, or fractionators, are used to purify the raw natural gas extracted from underground Natural gas field and brought up to the surface by Oil well....
     plant: Purifies and converts raw natural gas into residential, commercial and industrial fuel gas, and also recovers natural gas liquids (NGL) such as ethane
    Ethane

    Ethane is a chemical compound with chemical formula C2H6. It is the only two-carbon alkane, that is, an aliphatic hydrocarbon....
    , propane
    Propane

    Propane is a three-carbon alkane, normally a gas, but compressible to a transportable liquid. It is derived from other petroleum products during oil or natural gas processing....
    , butane
    Butane

    Butane, also called n-butane, is the unbranched alkane with four carbon atoms, CH3CH2CH2CH3....
    s and pentane
    Pentane

    Pentane is any or one of the organic compounds with the chemical formula C5H12. This alkane is a component of some fuels and is employed as a specialty solvent in the laboratory....
    s.
  • Salt refinery
    Newark, California

    Newark is a city in Alameda County, California, California, United States. Newark is an enclave, completely surrounded by the city of Fremont, California....
    : Cleans salt (NaCl
    Sodium chloride

    Sodium chloride, also known as common salt, table salt, or halite, is a chemical compound with the chemical formula SodiumChlorine....
    ), produced by the solar evaporation
    Sodium chloride

    Sodium chloride, also known as common salt, table salt, or halite, is a chemical compound with the chemical formula SodiumChlorine....
     of sea water, followed by washing and re-crystallization
    Crystallization

    Crystallization is the process of formation of solid crystals Precipitation from a solution, melting or more rarely Deposition directly from a gas....
    .
  • Various metal refineries such as alumina, copper
    Copper

    Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
    , gold
    Gold

    Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
    , lead
    Lead

    Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
    , nickel
    Nickel

    Nickel is a chemical element, with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge....
    , silver
    Silver

    Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
    , uranium
    Uranium

    Uranium is a silvery-gray metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the chemical symbol U and atomic number 92....
    , and zinc
    Zinc

    Zinc is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a first-row transition metal of the group 12 element of the periodic table....
    .
  • Vegetable oil refinery


A typical oil refinery

The image below is a schematic flow diagram
Process Flow diagram

A process flow diagram is a diagram commonly used in chemical engineering and process engineering to indicate the general flow of plant processes and equipment....
 of a typical oil refinery that depicts the various unit
Unit

Unit may refer to:In mathematics:* Unit vector, a vector with length equal to 1* Unit circle, the circle with radius equal to 1, centered at the origin...
 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.

A typical natural gas processing plant

The image below is a schematic block flow diagram
Process Flow diagram

A process flow diagram is a diagram commonly used in chemical engineering and process engineering to indicate the general flow of plant processes and equipment....
 of a typical natural gas processing plant. It shows the various unit processes used to convert raw natural gas into sales gas pipelined to the end user markets.

The block flow diagram also shows how processing of the raw natural gas yields byproduct sulfur, byproduct ethane, and natural gas liquids (NGL) propane, butanes and natural gasoline (denoted as pentanes +).

Typical refining of sugar

Cut Sugarcane
Most of the sugar produced worldwide is derived either from sugarcane
Sugarcane

Sugarcane is a genus of 6 to 37 species of tall perennial plant Poaceae , native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the Old World. They have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar and measure 2 to 6 meters tall....
 or sugar beet
Sugar beet

Sugar beet , a member of the Chenopodiaceae family, is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production....
s. However, the sugar produced from sugarcane is at least twice the amount produced by sugar beets. For that reason, this section on the refining of sugar deals with sugar produced from sugarcane.

Milling
The refining of sugarcane into sugar has traditionally been done in two stages. The first stage is the production of a raw sugar by the milling of freshly harvested sugarcane, usually done locally in the sugarcane-producing regions. In a sugar mill, sugarcane is washed, chopped, and shredded by revolving knives. The shredded cane is mixed with water and crushed. The juices (containing 10-15 percent sucrose
Sucrose

Sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose, with the molecular formula C12H22O11. Its systematic name is a-D-glucopyranosyl- -?-D-fructofuranoside ....
) are collected and mixed with lime
Lime (mineral)

Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide....
 to adjust its pH
PH

pH is a measure of the Acid or Base of a solution. It is defined as the cologarithm of the Activity of dissolved hydrogen ions . Hydrogen ion activity coefficients cannot be measured experimentally, so they are based on theoretical calculations....
 to 7 which arrests sucrose's decay into glucose
Glucose

Glucose , a monosaccharide also known as grape sugar, blood sugar, or corn sugar, is a very important carbohydrate in biology....
 and fructose
Fructose

Fructose is a simple Reducing sugar sugar found in many foods and is one of the three important dietary monosaccharides along with glucose and galactose....
, and precipitates out some impurities. The lime and other suspended solids are settled out, and the clarified juice is concentrated in a multiple-effect evaporator
Multiple-effect evaporator

A multiple-effect evaporator, as defined in chemical engineering, is an apparatus for efficiently using the heat from steam to evaporate water....
 to make a syrup with about 60 weight percent sucrose. The syrup is further concentrated under vacuum
Vacuum

A vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty," but in reality, no volume of space can ever be perfectly empty....
 until it becomes supersaturated, and then seeded with crystalline sugar. Upon cooling, sugar crystallizes out of the syrup. Centrifuginging
Centrifuge

A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor, that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis....
 then separates the sugar from the remaining liquid (molasses). Raw sugar has a yellow to brown color. To produce a white sugar, sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide

Sulfur dioxide is the chemical compound with the formula SO2. It is produced by volcanoes and in various industrial processes. Since coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, their combustion generates sulfur dioxide....
 is bubbled through the cane juice before evaporation so as to bleach color-forming impurities into colourless ones. Sugar bleached white by this means is called mill white, plantation white, and crystal sugar. It is the form of sugar most often consumed in the sugarcane-producing countries.

The fibrous solids, called bagasse, remaining after the crushing of the shredded sugarcane, are burned for fuel which makes a sugar mill more than self-sufficient in energy. Any surplus bagasse can be used for animal feed, in paper manufacture, or burned to generate electricity for the local power grid.

Refining

The second stage is the processing is done in sugar refineries, often located in heavy sugar-consuming regions such as North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
, Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, and Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
, to produce refined white sugar that is more than 99 percent pure sucrose
Sucrose

Sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose, with the molecular formula C12H22O11. Its systematic name is a-D-glucopyranosyl- -?-D-fructofuranoside ....
. In such refineries, raw sugar is further purified. It is first mixed with heavy syrup and centrifuged to wash away the outer coating of the raw sugar crystals, which is less pure than the crystal interior. The remaining sugar is then dissolved to make a syrup (about 70 percent by weight solids) which is clarified by the addition of phosphoric acid
Phosphoric acid

Phosphoric acid, also known as orthophosphoric acid or phosphoric acid, is a mineral acid having the chemical formula Hydrogen3PhosphorusOxygen4....
 and calcium hydroxide
Calcium hydroxide

Calcium hydroxide, traditionally called slaked lime, hydrated lime, or pickling lime, is a chemical compound with the chemical formula Calcium2....
 that combine to precipitate calcium phosphate
Calcium phosphate

Calcium phosphate is the name given to a family of minerals containing calcium ions together with orthophosphates , metaphosphates or pyrophosphates and occasionally hydrogen or hydroxide ions....
. The calcium phosphate particles entrap some impurities and absorb others, and then float to the top of the tank, where they are skimmed off.

After any remaining solids are filtered out, the clarified syrup is decolorized by filtration through a bed of activated carbon
Activated carbon

Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal or activated coal, is a form of carbon that has been processed to make it extremely porous and thus to have a very large surface area available for adsorption or chemical reactions....
. The purified syrup is then concentrated to supersaturation and repeatedly crystallized under vacuum to produce white refined sugar. As in a sugar mill, the sugar crystals are separated from the molasses by centrifuging. To produce granulated sugar, in which the individual sugar grains do not clump together, sugar must be dried. Drying is accomplished first by drying the sugar in a hot rotary dryer, and then by blowing cool air through it for several days.

The equipment used in refineries


Refineries utilize a great many different types of physical equipment such as:

  • Centrifuges
    Centrifugation

    Centrifugation is a process that involves the use of the centrifugal force for the separation processs, used in industry and in laboratory settings....
  • Compressors
    Gas compressor

    A gas compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume.Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can transport the fluid through a pipe ....
  • Cooling tower
    Cooling tower

    Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer process waste heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the Wet-bulb temperature or rely solely on air to cool the working fluid to near the Dry-bulb temperature....
    s
  • Crushers
    Crusher

    A crusher is a machine designed to reduce large solid material objects into a smaller volume, or smaller pieces. Crushers may be used to reduce the size, or change the form, of waste materials so they can be more easily disposed of or recycled, or to reduce the size of a solid mix of raw materials , so that pieces of different composition can...
  • Crystallizers
  • Distillation towers
    Distillation

    Distillation is a method of separation process mixtures based on differences in their Volatility in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
     and other pressure vessels
    Pressure vessel

    A pressure vessel is a closed container designed to hold gases or liquids at a pressure different from the ambient pressure.The pressure differential is potentially dangerous and many fatal accidents have occurred in the history of their development and operation....
  • Electric power generators, transformer
    Transformer

    A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one electrical network to another through inductive coupling conductors — the transformer's coils or "windings"....
    s and electric motors
  • Electrolysis
    Electrolysis

    In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a method of separating Chemical bond chemical compound by passing an electric current through them....
     cells
  • Evaporators
    Evaporation

    Evaporation is the slow vaporization of a liquid and the reverse of condensation. A type of phase transition, it is the process by which molecules in a liquid State of matter spontaneously become gaseous ....
  • Filters
    Filter (chemistry)

    In chemistry and common usage, a filter is a device that is designed to block certain objects or substances while letting others through. Filters are often used to remove harmful substances from air or water, for example to remove air pollution, to make water drinkable, to prepare coffee....
  • Furnaces
  • Gas flare
    Gas flare

    A gas flare or flare stack is an elevated vertical stack or chimney found on oil oil well or drilling rig, and in oil refinery, chemical plants and landfills used for burning off unwanted gas or flammable gas and liquids released by pressure relief valves during unplanned over-pressuring of plant equipment....
    s
  • Mixers
    Mixture

    In chemistry, a mixture is a substance made by combining two or more different materials without a chemical reaction occurring .While there are no physical changes in a mixture, the chemical properties of a mixture, such as its melting point, may differ from those of its components....
     and blenders
  • Monitoring and control systems
    Control system

    A control system is a device or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or systems.There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic gate, and feedback or linear controls....
  • Piping
    Piping

    Within industry, piping is a system of pipe used to convey fluids from one location to another. The engineering discipline of piping design studies the efficient transport of fluid....
     and valves
  • Pumps
  • Steam generator
    Steam generator

    A steam generator is a device used to boil water to create steam. It may refer to:*Boiler , a closed vessel in which water is heated under pressure...
    s
  • Steam turbine
    Steam turbine

    A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Algernon Parsons in 1884....
    s and gas turbine
    Gas turbine

    A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a flow of combustion gas. It has an upstream compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....
    s
  • Storage tank
    Storage tank

    A storage tank is a container, usually for holding liquids, sometimes for compressed gases . The term can be used for reservoirs , and for manufactured containers....
    s
  • Wastewater treatment
    Industrial water treatment

    Industrial Water Treatment can be classified into the following categories:* Boiler water treatment* Cooling tower treatment* Wastewater Sewage treatment...


See also


  • Alumina
    Aluminium oxide

    Aluminium oxide is an amphoteric oxide of aluminium with the chemical formula 23. It is also commonly referred to as alumina or aloxite in the mining, ceramic and materials science communities....
  • Bagasse
    Bagasse

    Bagasse is the fibrous residue remaining after sugarcane or sorghum stalks are crushed to extract their juice and is currently used as a renewable resource in the manufacture of pulp and paper products and building materials....
  • Bayer process
    Bayer process

    The Bayer process is the principal industrial means of refining bauxite to produce alumina.Bauxite, the most important ore of aluminium, contains only 30-54% alumina, Al2O3, the rest being a mixture of silica, various iron oxides, and titanium dioxide....
     and Hall-Héroult process
    Hall-Héroult process

    The Hall-H?roult process is the major industrial process for the production of aluminium. It involves dissolving alumina in molten cryolite, and electrolysing the solution to obtain pure aluminium metal....
     (used to produce aluminium from bauxite ore)
  • Falconbridge Ltd.
    Falconbridge Ltd.

    Falconbridge Limited was a Toronto, Ontario-based natural resources company with operations in 18 countries, involved in the exploration, mining, processing, and marketing of metal and mineral products, including nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum....
     (large mining and metals refining company)
  • Liquefied Natural Gas
    Liquefied natural gas

    Not to be confused with Natural Gas Liquids .Liquefied natural gas or LNG is natural gas that has been converted temporarily to liquid form for ease of storage or transport....
     (LNG)
  • Liquefied petrolem gas
    LPG

    LPG may stand for:* Liquefied petroleum gas* Laboratoire de Planetologie, Grenoble, France* Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft * Llanfairpwll railway station, Wales; National Rail station code LPG....
     (LPG)
  • Natural gas
    Natural gas

    Natural gas is a gas consisting primarily of methane. It is found associated with fossil fuels, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, and landfills....
  • Oil refinery
    Oil refinery

    An oil refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas....
  • Petroleum
    Petroleum

    Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds....
  • Sugar cane
    Sugarcane

    Sugarcane is a genus of 6 to 37 species of tall perennial plant Poaceae , native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the Old World. They have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar and measure 2 to 6 meters tall....
  • Sugar beet
    Sugar beet

    Sugar beet , a member of the Chenopodiaceae family, is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production....


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