ENOTEC – Solutions for refineries and petrochemicals

Refineries and petrochemical plants involve a variety of processes and production steps in which a wide range of products are manufactured from crude oil. What they all have in common is the high energy requirement, which is always covered by combustion.

ENOTEC products offer a wide range of applications for combustion plants in refineries and for a variety of other processes, as they can be used in flue gas temperatures of up to 1400 °C, with high dust loads and in corrosive or reducing exhaust gases.

The spectrum ranges from coal, biomass and gas-fired power stations to waste incineration plants, shipbuilding, crematoria, cement and steel works, refineries and petrochemical plants. In other words, wherever combustion needs to be controlled efficiently, quickly and precisely.

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A refinery produces a wide variety of substances from crude oil, such as propane, petrol, diesel fuel, kerosene, heating oil or base oils for lubricants and bitumen, as well as raw materials for the plastics industry.

This is mainly done via purification, refining and distillation processes, but lesser-known processes such as reformers, hydrofiners, cokers and crackers are also used. Common to all processes is the high demand for heat and/or steam, as process temperatures of up to 900 °C are required.

The separation of the individual crude oil components by distillation is based on the fact that the individual components have different boiling temperatures and vaporise at different rates when heated.

If heat is added to the liquid mixture, the liquid with the lowest boiling temperature vaporises first. If this vapour is collected and cooled, it condenses and can be collected. The refinery gas produced as a by-product during distillation can be used as an energy source in the individual combustion processes.

During refining, catalyst pollutants are separated and the quality of the intermediate products is improved. For example, heating oils are still rich in sulphur compounds after distillation, which must be separated in the hydrofiner. Furthermore, petrol and diesel, for example, must be specially treated in the reformer in order to increase the octane number or cetane number.

The combustion processes in refineries are very diverse in terms of the tasks involved, but can generally be summarised in one common denominator: A fuel is always burned to generate heat or vapour. The fuel is in a gaseous or liquid state and is burnt using a burner. It is always important to optimise the fuel-air ratio in order to use fuel as efficiently as possible and to reduce emissions.

ENOTEC's wide range of products enables measurement in gas Ex zones as well as in non-Ex zones. For example, the explosion-proof COMTEC 6000 GasEx analyser system reacts immediately to changes in the flue gas composition and is ideal for the safe and accurate measurement of oxygen and COe in the flue gas of all combustion plants in refineries or similar areas with an explosion hazard (gas Ex zones 1/2).

The ATEX certifications successfully carried out by a German testing institute relate to all components of the analyser, including those components that are located directly in the flue gas.

This and all other certifications create confidence in plant safety and are coupled with the convincing quality of ENOTEC products, which consistently withstand the challenges of aggressive process conditions.