De-asphalter
A de-asphalter is a unit in a crude oil refinery or bitumen upgrader that separates asphalt from crude oil or bitumen.
The de-asphalter unit is usually placed after the vacuum distillation tower. It is usually a solvent de-asphalter unit, SDA. The SDA separates the asphalt from the feedstock because light hydrocarbons will dissolve aliphatic compounds but not asphaltenes. The output from the de-asphalter unit is de-asphalted oil ("DAO") and asphalt.
DAO from propane de-asphalting has the highest quality but lowest yield, whereas using pentane may double or triple the yield from a heavy feed, but at the expense of contamination by metals and carbon residues that shorten the life of downstream cracking catalysts.[1] If the solvent is butane the unit will be referred to as a ("BDA") and if the solvent is propane, it will be called a ("PDA") unit.
References[]
- Study of selected petroleum refining residuals by US EPA
- Lubricants and Lubrication (Second Edition)
- ^ John J. McKetta (1992). Petroleum Processing Handbook. CRC Press. p. 536. ISBN 978-0-8247-8681-6.
External links[]
Petroleum refining | |||||
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- Chemical equipment
- Distillation
- Petroleum technology