Crude oil has many components, each of which has a different weight, boiling point, and size. You can separate these compounds by boiling the mixture together. You do this in a fractional distillation column. We use distillation in many industries including the pharmaceuticals and chemical processing. You also find it in the oil and gas, chemical processing, and perfumes industry.

The assembly of a distillation column

The distillation column comes with internals and process equipment. We need this to carry out the distillation process. You can get the complete list from the Distillation Equipment manufacturers. The other equipment needed include vessels, pumps, heat exchangers, and other things. The supplier will help you with the assembly and instruct you on the operations. You may check the instrument specifications and design before you begin.

The process begins like this. You heat two substances to about 600 degrees Celsius. The mixture forms gases and vapors. This vapor mixture gets fed into the bottom of the fractional distillation column where you have many trays. These trays have holes or sieves that allow the vapors to rise through them. Many of them have bubble caps that are valves for allowing the vapors at a specific pressure to escape.

Process of condensation

When the vapor rises, the temperature of the mixture drops. When it reaches the height where the temperature is at the boiling point of the liquid, the vapor condenses and becomes liquid. The rest of the mixture containing vapors having a higher boiling point will continue to rise until they reach their boiling point. At that point, they will become liquid. The tray collects the various liquid fractions.

You can contact the distillation equipment Suppliers in Maharashtra for the fabrication service. They do the installation and commissioning of the distillation towers. They will do the process equipment fabrication and supply the things you want. Other than the trays, you need pall caps, mist eliminators, and structured packaging. They make them serve at the height at which they place them. They can withstand a lot of heat and pressure.

Changing to the desired fraction

They can change one fraction into another through recombination or breaking. We refer to these processes as cracking, alteration, and unification. They use the thermal and the catalytic method for doing this. Structured packing helps improve the contact surface area between the liquid and the vapor.

It consists of wire meshes and steel units that have a good void ratio. They make these wire meshes of graded stainless steel that is an alloy of chromium, nickel, nitrogen, and carbon. The alloy shows high tensile strength and high resistance to corrosion. They also withstand high temperature. The choice of the material is such that they show a high mass transfer rate and very low-pressure drop.

The distilled fractions undergo separation. They get treated to remove organic compounds such as sulfur, water, oxygen, nitrogen, and inorganic salts. The end products will now become kerosene, jet fuel, diesel fuel, gasoline, lubricating oil, heating oil, and so on. About 40% of the distilled crude oil becomes gasoline.

Author's Bio: 

Finepac Structures Private Limited is a well organized industry that is settled in Pune (Maharashtra), India. Outfitted with advanced machines and testing facilities, we are able to manufacture and supply Distillation Column, Mist Eliminators, Column Internals, Mixing and Internals for Oil & Gas Petrochemicals Industry.