Why Desalting is Needed In Refining Process?

Since crude oil contains dirt and many unwanted impurities, it requires purification to get the demanded product. Substances such as mud, sand, inorganic salts, and polymers are found in unrefined oil. This is why a series of procedures, including separation, conversion, and treating, are required in refinery processing. After the crude oil is dug out from its source, it is brought to an oil refinery processing unit. A technique called desalting is applied to purify the oil as the first step of the refinery process.

Corrosive components found in crude oil

The naturally extracted crude oil may contain many components that are corrosive properties. They can cause damage to equipment and pipelines deployed in a refinery unit. Some of these common corrosive components are:

Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

It is a colorless gas that causes a severe kind of corrosion called "sweet corrosion." The reaction takes place without high levels of hydrogen sulfide or similar corrosive agents.

Organic acids

These are organic compounds with acidic properties that cause naphthenic acid corrosion (NAC), a non- aqueous corrosion process in refinery distillation units. This type of corrosion occurs in processing equipment such as in furnace tubes, columns, and pipelines.

Sulfur

It is a chemical element that can cause sulfidation corrosion at high temperatures. The reaction can cause damage to plain steels and low alloy steels used in the unit.
 
Methods of crude oil refining

There are several techniques that are applicable to the purification process. A process of refining may differ from another depending on the type of desired product. The most common methods are:

Cracking

The substances in the oil are cracked at higher boiling points. Petroleum fractions such as gasoline and other fuel oils are extracted by altering the molecular structure of hydrocarbons.

Fractional distillation

The feedstock from the de-salted raw material is poured into a distillation column after. As a process of distillation, the temperature of the vapor at the top is reduced after lighter fractions of the material are evaporated. This process produces gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and uncondensed gasses.

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