Determining Stage Efficiency from Operating Conditions for the Liquid-Liquid Extraction Column Model Dedicated to Heavy Neutral Distillate – Aromatic Extraction Process of a Group-I Lube Base Oil Plant

Abstract

In a lube base oil production, the feed heavy neutral distillate is originated from fractionation of various crude oil blends. Because the changing feed properties affect both yield and quality of raffinate, the plant operating conditions need to be tuned accordingly. In this study, a predictive model for an existing industrial-scale extraction process dedicated to group-I production is constructed to determine the right operating parameters in advance, which minimizes off-spec production due to faster adaption of operation to a new feedstock. It is developed via use of the phase equilibrium data published for heavy neutral distillate + Furfural system, laboratory measurements of physical properties and composition of distillate as well as the existing plant data. The accuracy of the corresponding process model is increased via determining stage efficiency from an empirical equation based on only selected operating conditions, namely solvent temperature and solvent-to-distillate ratio.

Keywords

• Group-I lube base oil,Aromatic extraction,Furfural,Stage efficiency,Multistage column model

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