Petroleum Blending
Petroleum products are one among the most fascinating inventions of man. They had been used by man from a very long time and had become a part of every day life. The most important and inevitable component of almost everything we use is petroleum. From car fuels, paints, cooking gas, and even in cosmetics one or other type of petroleum product is used. So what are these; Petroleum products are the refined fossil fuels which had been formed as a part of the nature’s decomposition and sedimentation process and had taken thousands of years to turn into these multi useable product; the crude oil, which is converted to other petroleum products through the process of refining, the complete man made process, which had paved way to the invention great products like the jet fuels, petrol, diesel and even the paraffin wax.
The petroleum products are obtained through a large range of process. The processes are exploration, extraction and refining. The crude oil is often found in nature as a deposition in large quantities underneath, which needs to be explored to find out where we can get them. The most shocking fact is that the oil depositions are depleting at large quantities because of high-level extraction. Next comes the exploration process where the deposited oil is extracted out using oil pumps and here comes the deep black crude oil. The oil in this form is least useable and needs to be converted to the forms which we what them to be, and this process is known as the refining process. Once the products are refined and separated as different hydrocarbons through the process of distillation, the product could still want some extra refinement this is what Blending does. Hence blending is nothing but providing add on features to the petroleum products and thus increasing its usability by adding on several other additives. The products obtained as a result of refining is a long list and includes several by products, which are further blended with other chemicals to make them useful. So the crude oil is useful in whole and there is nothing to be wasted of. Petroleum products include gaseous fuels, liquid fuels, lubricants, gasoline, jet fuels, kerosene, asphalt and paraffin wax. These are distilled at various stages of distillation based on their boiling point.
Blending..
The blending process of petroleum products is the followed by refining and is the physically mixing various hydrocarbons in order to obtain the product of desired quality. The blending is done in two ways inline- blending and the batch blending process. The inline distillation of gasoline produces jet fuels. The additives are added as a part of blending to give the hydrocarbons a new and improved texture and property. These additives can be included as anti knock agents, anti oxidants, octane enhancers, or rust inhibitors.
Gasoline
Gasoline is used as the primary fuel and the effectively blended petroleum product. The gasoline blending is a much more complex process than you can imagine. The market of gasoline blending has emerged to be an industry with great importance and is of much in demand. The pure gasoline produced as the part of refining crude oil is not that completely reliable; because of many short comes, these are over came through the process of blending. The various products of gasoline blending are:
- Straight run gasoline
- Reformate
- Cat cracked gasoline
- Hydrocrackate
- Alkylate
- Isomerate
Straight run gasoline:
This is the pure gasoline. Straight run gasoline is the direct by product of petroleum refining. The product lacks many qualities including the low octane rating, which can affect the performance of the combustion engines. So it required lead additives to improve its quality.
Reformate:
The reformate is an enhanced version of straight run gasoline which has high octane number, high aromatic contents and low olefin values.
Cat cracked gasoline:
Cat cracked gasoline or cat cracked naphtha is further reformed with moderate octane number, high olefin values and moderate aromatic contents.
Hydrocrack ate:
These are produced in a hydrocracker and can be blended to form high low and medium hydrocrackates. The difference lies in their octane number, which is adjusted to obtain the three types.
Alkylate:
These are produced in the alkylation unit by blending is isobutane to them.
Isomer ate:
They are obtained by low isomerizing straight run gasoline to isoparaffins.
