10/29/2024

AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❑INDUSTRY OVERVIEW
◼ The section is necessary for an understanding of the interrelationships
between the industrial processes, the types of air emissions, and control.

◼ Pollution prevention approaches. Descriptions of commonly used

production processes, associated raw materials, by-products produced are
first described. Define Petroleum refining
◼ Petroleum refining is the physical, thermal, and chemical separation of
crude oil into its major distillation fractions
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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❑INDUSTRY OVERVIEW
Major categories of primary products of the petroleum industry
Primary products of the industry fall into three major categories:

◼ Fuels (motor gasoline, diesel and distillate fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gas,
jet fuel, residual fuel oil, kerosene, and coke);

◼ Finished nonfuel products (solvents, lubricating oils, greases, petroleum

wax, petroleum asphalt, and coke);

◼ Chemical industry (naphtha, ethane, propane, butane, ..

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❑PROCESS OPERATIONS AND SOURCES OF AIR EMISSIONS

❑ The first phase is desalting of crude oil and the subsequent distillation into
its various components or "fractions.“

❑ The second phase is made up of three different types of "downstream"

processes: combining, breaking, and reshaping.

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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❑ Crude Oil Distillation and Desalting

❖ Desalting –
❑ Before separation into fractions, crude oil must first be treated to remove
corrosive salts. The desalting process also removes some of the metals and
suspended solids .

❖ Atmospheric Distillation
❑ The desalted crude oil is then heated in a heat exchanger and furnace

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❑ Crude Oil Distillation and Desalting

❖ Atmospheric Distillation
❑ The desalted crude oil is then heated in a heat exchanger and furnace to about
750°F and fed to a vertical, distillation column at atmospheric pressure where
most of the feed is vaporized and separated into its various fractions by
condensing on 30 to 50 fractionation trays, Each corresponding to a different
condensation temperature.

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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❑ Crude Oil Distillation and Desalting

❖ Atmospheric Distillation
❑ The lighter fractions condense and are
collected towards the top of the column.
Heavier fractions, which may not vaporize
in the column, are further separated later by
vacuum distillation

Crude oil distillation

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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❑ Crude Oil Distillation and Desalting

❖ Vacuum Distillation
❖ Heavier fractions from the atmospheric distillation unit that cannot be
distilled without cracking under its pressure and temperature conditions are
vacuum distilled.

❖ Vacuum distillation is simply the distillation of petroleum fractions at a very

low pressure (0.2 to 0.7 psia) to increase volatilization and separation.

❖
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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❖ Vacuum Distillation
❖ In most systems, the vacuum inside the fractionator is maintained with steam
ejectors and vacuum pumps, or surface condensers.

❖ Downstream Processing
❖ Certain fractions from the distillation of crude oil are further refined in
thermal cracking coking, catalytic cracking. These downstream processes
change the molecular structure into smaller molecules, joining to form
larger molecules.
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❖ Thermal Cracking
❖ Thermal cracking,, uses heat and pressure to break large hydrocarbon
molecules into smaller, lighter molecules.

❖ The process has been largely replaced by catalytic cracking and some
technology no longer employ thermal cracking.

❖ Both processes reduce the production of less valuable products such as heavy
fuel oil.

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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❖ Thermal Cracking

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❖ Coking
❖ Coking - A coker flow diagram is shown in Figure. Coking is a cracking
process used primarily to reduce refinery production of low-value residual
fuel oils to transportation fuels, .such as gasoline and diesel.

❖ As part of the upgrading process, coking also produces petroleum coke,

which is essentially solid carbon with varying amounts of impurities, and is
used as a fuel for power plants if the sulfur content is low enough.

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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❖ Coking

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❖ EMISSIONS ESTIMATES
❖ Raw material input to petroleum refineries is primarily crude oil; however,
petroleum refineries use and generate an enormous number of chemicals,
many of which leave the facilities as discharges of air emissions, wastewater
, or solid waste.

❖ Pollutants generated typically include VOCs, carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur

oxides (SO,), nitrogen oxides (NO,), particulates, ammonia (NH,), hydrogen
sulfide (H2S) metals, spent acids, and numerous toxic organic compounds.
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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

❖ EMISSIONS ESTIMATES

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❖ POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL

❖ According to TRI data, (The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program tracks the
industrial) the petroleum refining industry releases (discharges to the air,
water, or land without treatment) and transfers (shipped off-site) a total of 482
million pounds of pollutants per year.

PREVENTION AND CONTROL

❖ Minimize losses from storage tanks and product transfer areas by methods such
as vapor recovery systems and double seals.
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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

Explain pollution prevention and control on the petroleum industry for

SO, Sulfur, loses from tanks
PREVENTION AND CONTROL

❖ Minimize SO, emissions either through desulfurization of fuels, to the extent

feasible, or by directing the use of high-sulfur fuels to units equipped with SO,
emissions controls.

❖ Recover sulfur from tail gases in high-efficiency sulfur recovery units.

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PREVENTION AND CONTROL.

❖ Use low-NO, burners to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

❖ Avoid and limit fugitive emissions by proper process design and maintenance.

❖ Keep fuel usage to a minimum.

❖ Place secondary seals on storage tanks -

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Explain methods for prevention for the petroleum industry

PREVENTION AND CONTROL

❖ Establish leak detection and repair program

❖ Eliminate use of open ponds - Open ponds used to cool, settle out solids and
store process. open ponds can be replaced with closed storage tanks.

❖ Remove unnecessary storage tanks from service.

❖ Replace old boilers

❖ Install rupture discs and plugs

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Explain the aim of using caustic material in pollution industry

PREVENTION AND CONTROL

❖ Install high pressure power washer –

❖ Recycle and regenerate spent caustics - Caustics used to absorb and remove
hydrogen sulfide and phenol contaminants from intermediate and final product
streams can often be recycled.

❖ Use nonhazardous degreasers

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Explain Main pollutants on the petroleum industry .

Main pollutants:
•Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
•Particle matter (total particle matter)
•Nitrogen oxides (NOx)
•Sulphur dioxide (SO2)
•Carbon monoxide (CO)
•methane

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AIR POLLUTION IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

How do company solutions fit into the monitoring of air quality in refineries and gas plants ?

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