Lecture 4

Petroleum Industry:
Exploration and
Shiraz University
Production
Department of
Petroleum Engineering

Process equipment in
petroleum industry
(Part II)

Dr. J. Qajar Semester 1, 1395-96

 Transport phenomena
 Momentum transport
 Driving force: velocity gradient
 Energy transport (heat transfer)
 Driving force: temperature gradient
 Mass transport
 Driving force: concentration gradient

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Process equipment

 Fluid flow and storage equipments

 Pipelines, storage tanks, mixing tanks, ...
 Heat transfer equipments
 Heat exchangers, cooling towers, ...
 Mass transfer equipments
 Distillation columns, absorption towers, ...

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• Distillation
• Absorption

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Distillation
 Principle: Separating the components of a
solution which depends upon the distribution
of the substance between a gas and a liquid
phase
 Mechanisms: The new phases are created
from the original solution by heating
(vaporizing and condensing)
 All components are present in liquid and
vapor phases.
 Separation of brine into water and salt by
heating is not distillation. 5
Application of
distillation of
crude oil

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Distillation equipment

 Plate towers (trayed columns)

 Packed columns

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Plater towers Condenser

Reflux Distillate

Feed

Reboiler
Residue
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Gas Absorption (gas scrubbing/washing)
 Principle: A gas mixture is contacted with a
liquid to selectively dissolve one or more
components by mass transfer from the gas
to the liquid.
 Mechanisms: interphase mass transfer
controlled largely by rates of diffusion
 Liquid: absorbent or solvent
 The components transferred to the liquid are
referred to as solutes or absorbate.
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Application of Absorption
 Separation of gas mixtures.
 Removing impurities, contaminants &
pollutants.
 Recovering valuable chemicals

 Examples
 Absorption of SO2 or NH3 from air into
water
 Absorption of carbon dioxide in diethanol-
amine solution 10
Gas Stripping (apposite of absorption)
 Gas stripping or desorption
 Principle: a liquid mixture is contacted with a
gas to selectively remove components by
mass transfer from liquid to the gas phase.
 Example:
 Stripping of paraffin hydrocarbons from a
mixture of non-volatile organic compounds
by steam

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Types of Absorption
 Physical absorption
 Absorption of acetone from an acetone–air
mixture into water
 Chemical absorption
 Absorption of CO2 in NaOH (irreversible
chemical absorption)
 Absorption of CO2 or H2S in monoethanol amine
(reversible reaction takes place in liquid phase)

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13
Types of Absorption
 Chemical reaction can increase:

1. Rate of absorption.
2. The absorption capacity of the solvent,
3. Selectivity to preferential dissolve only certain
components of the gas,
4. Convert a hazardous chemical to a safe
compound.

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Absorption Equipment
1. Trayed towers 2. Packed columns
(plate columns)

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Absorption Equipment
3. Spray towers 4. Bubble columns

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Absorption Equipment
5. Centrifugal contactors

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Plate towers
Details of a
contacting tray
in a Trayed
tower

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Plate towers:
Vapor liquid regimes for sieve tray tower
Froth regime:
The most common and favored regime is the froth regime, in which the
liquid phase is continuous and the gas passes through in the form of
jets or a series of bubbles.

The spray regime,

In which the gas phase is continuous, occurs for low weir heights (low
liquid depths) at high gas rates.

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Plate towers:
Vapor liquid regimes for sieve tray tower
bubble regime
For low gas rates, in which the liquid is fairly quiescent and
bubbles rise in swarms.

Emulsion:
At high liquid rates, small gas bubbles may be undesirably
emulsified.

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Packed towers
(for absorption)

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• Heat
Exchangers

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Energy
 Forms of energy: thermal, mechanical,
kinetic, potential, electrical, magnetic,
chemical, and nuclear
 Microscopic energy: the forms of energy
related to the molecular structure and activity
of a system
 Internal energy: the sum of all microscopic
forms of energy of a system

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Principles of heat transfer
 Energy can be transferred in two forms:
 Work
 Heat
 Definition of heat: a form of energy that can
be transferred from one system to another
as a result of temperature difference
 The science that deals with the
determination of the rates of such energy
transfers is heat transfer
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Principles of heat transfer

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Application of heat transfer

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Mechanisms of heat transfer

 Conduction

 Convection

 Radiation

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Heat exchangers
 Principle: Heat exchangers are devices that
facilitate the exchange of heat between two
fluids that are at different temperatures while
keeping them from mixing with each other.
 Mechanisms: Heat transfer in a heat
exchanger usually involves convection in
each fluid and conduction through the wall
separating the two fluids.

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Types of heat exchangers
 Double-pipe heat exchanger (simplest type)

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Types of heat exchangers
 Double-pipe heat exchanger (simplest type)

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Types of heat exchangers
 Cross-flow heat exchanger

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Types of heat exchangers
 Shell-and-tube heat exchanger

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