What is the process of refining oil?

and when you take '; crude'; oil from the ground what kinds of impurities are inside of it and how is the refining process any different when refining the used oil which is recycled after use?





why and how so?





is it simply just burning the impurities out each time?





and for anyone who would like to guess.......do you think that oil can be found in most places on earth? or which climates, areas is it more likely to be found?





why or why not?





thanks for your answers!What is the process of refining oil?
I hope you're ready for this.


The following explanation is very basic as the Industry is very involved.





*...Crude oil contains many hundreds of different Hydrocarbon Compounds and some unwanted material like Water, CO2 and Sulphur compounds which are removed before and during processing..


*...The Refining of Crude Oil is carried out by a process called 'Fractional Distillation'. (Other process on the products are required to produce thousands of other products like, Gasolines, Diesels, Jet Fuels, Heating Oils, Lube Oils, Light and Heavy Fuels and Tar (Bitumen).


*...The Crude Oil is heated to a high temperature and passed into a Distillation tower where it partially vaporises.


*...The lighter components, as gases, rise up the tower through a series of Separator Trays where they cool and condense at different levels in the tower.


*...The heavier, hot liquid fractions pass down the tower also passing over trays and the heavier Tars fall to the bottom.


*...The bottom liquid is reheated by a reboiler to drive off any light components leaving the Bitumen to be taken away to storage.


*...The lighter, rising vapours pass up the tower, exhanging heat with the downflowing liquids and again, separation takes place on the trays of mixtures of compounds of different boiling ranges forming the Heavy Fuels, and higher up, the lighter fuels, and still higher to the lube oils, as they cool and condense on the trays at different, lower temperatures as they rise up the tower.


*...The top of the tower is where the coolest and lightest fractions are taken off as gases and are mostly condensed to Naphtha which goes on to be processed into Gasolines.


Naphtha also goes to other companies for processing to produce, Plastics, Man made fibres, Cosmetics, Medicines and many other synthetic products.


*...The next products down the tower, are the Kerosenes which produce Paraffins and Jet fuels, then Diesel and Heating Oils ..etc.


*...Below this is the point where the process began (called the 'Flash Zone' where the initial separation of the crude oil took place.


*...(From bottom to top, the hydrocarbons are forming liquid mixtures of different Boiling Ranges on each tray as they cool and condense. Each tray acts as a single distillation unit giving the degree of separation required. The Temperature and Pressure Profiles and Reflux Rates across the tower from bottom to top are carefully controlled to maintain the required boiling range of each product produced.





Crude oil and Natural Gas are found in just about all countries in varying quantities even in the Arctic and in the Seas and Oceans..What is the process of refining oil?
Crude oil is a very complex mixture of various chemicals, but one major component is just plain water.


Refining oil involves removing the water, and heating the remaining oil so that most of its constituting hydrocarbons evaporate. Then, in what is called a separation tower, the various chemicals are allowed to condense back to their liquid form at various point in the column, where the height is linked with the temperature. The lighter liquids will condense at the top, the heavier fractions at the bottom (and very heavy fractions, like asphalt, may remain at the bottom throughout).





Refining may also involve additional processes, like catalytic reformation, when some chemical reactions are used to break down heavy hydrocarbons of small economical value to form more of the lighter stuff that is more desirable, like autromotive fuel.








As to where crude oil is located, it is a rather unequal distribution. Oil formed from the decomposition of plants million of years old at the bottom of shallow marshes. If some place on the planet were never the bottom of a lake, there is little chance that oil would have formed there. Also, to have recoverable oil requires the terrain around to be oil proof, so that the crude oil would not have dispersed away.
The main goal of refining crude oil is to seperate it into its different components. The is done through fractional distillation - the crude is heated and rises through a tall tower. As it rises it cools, and the heavier components like bitumen liquefy and are collected. As the crude rises and cools further, lighter compenents like gasoline are collected.


Non-hydrocarbons, notably sulfur are removed in seperate processes.





2. The distribution of oil is fairly uneven around the world. It depends on the geology of the area.
Boil it, the different parts of the oil (eg naptha, propane) all have different boiling points so will siphon off at different points. The 'waste' is useally the part with the lowest boiling point so they get rid of the impurities. although some of them can be used - eg bitchumen for tarring roads. Oil can't be found everywhere, only in arreas where plant or animal matter has been decayed and compressed over millions of years.