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View of Shell Oil Refinery in
Martinez, California.
A refinery is composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations used for refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.
[edit] Types of refineries
The various types of refineries include:
- Oil refinery: Converts petroleum crude oil into automotive fuels (gasoline/petrol and diesel oil), liquefied petroleum gases, jet aircraft fuel, heating fuel oils, asphalt and petroleum coke.
- Sugar refinery: Converts sugar cane and sugar beets into crystallized sugar and sugar syrups.
- Natural gas processing plant: Purifies and converts raw natural gas into residential, commercial and industrial fuel gas, and also recovers natural gas liquids (NGL).
- Alumina refinery: Converts bauxite ore (also known as alumina or aluminium oxide) into aluminium metal.
[edit] The equipment used in refineries
Refineries utilize a great many different types of physical equipment such as:
- Distillation towers and other pressure vessels
- Storage tanks
- Pumps and compressors
- Steam turbines and gas turbines
- Furnaces and steam generators
- Electric power generators, transformers and electric motors
- Filters
- Centrifuges
- Evaporators and crystallizers
- Electrolysis cells
- Piping and valves
- Cooling towers
- Mixers and blenders
- Crushers
- Monitoring and control systems
[edit] See also
- Alumina
- Bagasse
- Bayer process and Hall-Héroult process (used to produce aluminium from bauxite ore)
- Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
- Liquefied petrolem gas (LPG)
- Natural gas
- Oil refinery
- Petroleum
- Sugar cane
- Sugar beet
[edit] External links
