Cleaning and liquid contact with solids – Processes – Including regeneration – purification – recovery or separation...
Patent
1982-08-16
1984-10-02
Bashore, S. Leon
Cleaning and liquid contact with solids
Processes
Including regeneration, purification, recovery or separation...
134 2218, 134 2219, 134 40, 252153, 252545, 252548, 252 855B, B08B 908, C11D 326, C11D 330, C11D 334
Patent
active
044746229
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a composition and a process for the recovery and upgrading of the sludges that accumulate in vessels for storing and transporting petroleum products. It can also be applied to pockets of hydrocarbons that are to be made exploitable.
It is known that sludges of high and low viscosity comprising heavy hydrocarbon derivatives, or an emulsion of these with water, accumulate in the course of time in vessels for storing or transporting petroleum products such as crude oil light or heavy fuel oil or slop, and that it is difficult to eliminate such sludges by pumping or other mechanical means.
The result of this is a substantial loss of useful raw material, a progressive reduction in the capacity of the vessels, and a correlated increase in the costs of storage and transportation of petroleum products, as well as the necessity either of periodically carrying out a particular treatment of the vessels to remove such residues or of abandoning the use of the vessels.
In addition, it is known that there are difficulties of emptying or exploiting certain vessels or containers or pockets because of the high viscosity of the products they contain. Conventionally, the recovery operation is performed by inundating the mass of sludge with hot water and hot hydrocarbons so as to dissolve or soften them or put them into suspension. The resulting reduction in the viscosity of the sludge then makes it possible for the sludge to be pumped and transferred.
This process is slow, as the capacity of the hydrocarbons for dissolving the fairly compact mass of sludge is relatively low, and this puts the vessels out of action for a prolonged period of time and also gives rise to high expenditure of heat and labor.
In addition, such a process cannot be applied to the whole of the mass of heavy hydrocarbons because, from a certain level of the mass, cavitation occurs at the intake of the emptying pumps, and this results in explosive gases being given off in the empty space in the vessel or pocket, which may explode upon contact with one single spark.
Therefore, the emptying of the vessel must be completed manually, and water is usually added to put the sludge into suspension so that it can be handled by means of scrapers and thus pushed toward suction intake hoses so that the sludge can fill portable containers.
This operation is carried out under very poor conditions of operator hygiene and safety, and this results in a very inefficient operation and also causes the containers to be out of action for a prolonged period.
In addition, the use of water results in the production of emulsions which in most cases cannot be recovered at the refining stage and which can be eliminated only by incineration, unless the operators of the process are prepared to tolerate the disadvantages of putting such substances into other containers, which results in a drop in the value of such products.
The present invention results from research into ways of overcoming the difficulties involved in the problem of recovering sludges and the economic importance of upgrading them by improving the working conditions involved and avoiding the loss of high-quality raw material and needless consumption of energy, which lead to the present invention, based on the discovery of a composition and a process that facilitates operation under substantially improved conditions of hygiene and safety, that uses a minimum amount of energy, substantially reduces the time for which manual intervention is required, and upgrades the sludges so that there is no need to waste the energy they contain or to clutter up other storage facilities with them.
The composition used in accordance with the present invention is produced by means of a solvent and a demulsifying and dispersing agent, characterized in that the solvent is a mixture containing at least one aliphatic hydrocarbon, with from 8 to 12 carbon atoms in the molecule, and at least one aromatic hydrocarbon of the benzene or naphthalene type, and the demulsifying and dispersing agent that is an aliphatic stra
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Chemical Abstracts "Mobilizing Petroleum Sludges" 9700x, vol. 95 (2), 1981, p. 148.
"McCutcheon's Detergents and Emulsifiers" 1978 Annual North American Edition pp. 127-128.
Bashore S. Leon
Establissements Somalor-Ferrari Somafer S.A.
Hastings K. M.
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