A Guide to Petroleum Products
In simple terms, petroleum products are organic matter, which is produced by refining crude oil. The majority of petroleum is turned into petroleum products. They are composite mixtures, which include many groups of fuel. Crude oil that is extracted from geological sources comprises of a combination of multiple hydrocarbons. In that case, this crude oil is taken through a complicated cleansing process that segregates it many hydrocarbon forms. Moreover, the hydrocarbons will be turned into the products wished for during the cleansing process. This work will explore in detail some oil refining products.
With a lot of end products resulting from the refining process, only a few will be looked at in this work. We begin with vacuum gas oil (VGO) as an oil refining product. VGO is a crucial intermediate feedstock that can improve the output of other valuable fuels. Some of the fuels whose performance is refined by the addition of VGO include gasoline and diesel. Vacuum distillation is often used to recover gas oil from residual oil. High temperatures and vacuum conditions area applied throughout the distillation operation.
The use of a vacuum is for the reason of scaling down the boiling temperature of the oil. As such, distillation is carried out in temperatures, which are not possible in atmospheric distillation. This activity separates light gas oil and heavy gas oil into fractions and leaves behind vacuum residuum. The light portion of VGO is hence referred to as light vacuum gas oil otherwise LVGO.
Ethylene glycol (EG) is one more organic product that will be examined. Ethylene glycol is also a petroleum product derived from natural gas. Two processes employ ethylene glycol as a starting material. First and foremost ethylene glycol is employed in the manufacture of antifreeze formulations. In the second place, it is made use of in the production of polyester fibers. In addition, this liquid is colorless and odorless. A mixture of ethylene glycol and water freezes at a temperature below that of water. In the manufacture of polyester, ethylene glycol is used as an essential precursor. It is for instance utilized to make PET bottles used for packing soft drinks if converted to an appropriate form.
In conclusion, as said before, ethylene glycol is very toxic especially to animals and humans. It has a sweet taste that attracts mobile living things. Once it is taken in, it is converted to oxalic acid that is fatal to the body in large doses. As such it is used again to avoid its destruction. Vacuum distillation is used in ethylene glycol recycling. Waste ethylene glycol mixture is vaporized in a heat exchanger to cleanse it.