초록

Tar is contacted with stripping agent, such as steam or tail gas, in a stripping tower. A product comprising deasphalted tar is recovered as overheads and a product comprising heavy tar is recovered as bottoms from the stripping tower.

대표청구항 ▼

What is claimed is: 1. A process comprising: (a) feeding tar containing asphaltenes to a stripping tower and contacting said tar with a stripping agent consisting of methane, ethane, synthesis gas, coke-oven gas, refinery gas, acetylene tail gas, chill train tail gas, ethylene off-gas, steam, hydro

What is claimed is: 1. A process comprising: (a) feeding tar containing asphaltenes to a stripping tower and contacting said tar with a stripping agent consisting of methane, ethane, synthesis gas, coke-oven gas, refinery gas, acetylene tail gas, chill train tail gas, ethylene off-gas, steam, hydrogen gas, and mixtures thereof; (b) obtaining as products of said stripping tower an overhead product comprising deasphalted tar and a bottoms product comprising an asphaltenic heavy tar composition. 2. The process of claim 1, wherein the overhead product of step (b) is sent to a separating vessel wherein a fraction comprising deasphalted tar is separated from a fraction comprising said stripping agent. 3. The process of claim 2, wherein said stripping agent is then recycled to step (a). 4. The process of claim 1, wherein said stripping agent comprises steam. 5. The process of claim 1, wherein said stripping agent comprises methane and ethane. 6. The process of claim 1, wherein said stripping agent comprises tail gas. 7. The process of claim 2, wherein at least a portion of said deasphalted tar fraction is mixed with a fuel oil pool selected from the group consisting of Bunker fuel oil and fuel oils lighter than Bunker fuel oil. 8. The process of claim 2, wherein at least a portion of said deasphalted tar fraction is burned in a boiler and/or furnace. 9. The process of claim 2, wherein at least a portion of said deasphalted tar fraction is provided as feed to a hydrocracker to make diesel. 10. The process of claim 2, wherein said deasphalted tar fraction is at least 50 wt %, preferably at least 60 wt %, more preferably at least 70 wt %, of the tar contacted in step (a). 11. The process of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of said asphaltenic heavy tar product is processed in a POX unit to produce syn gas and/or a coker unit to produce coker naphtha and coker gas oil. 12. The process of claim 1, wherein the stripping tower in step (b) operates at a temperature of between about 550° F. to about 1100° F. and a pressure of from about 10 psig to about 60 psig, and wherein the ratio of volume of stripping gas to volume of tar is in the range of about 0.5 to 10. 13. The process of claim 1, wherein, prior to step (a), crude or a fraction thereof is fed to a pyrolysis furnace to produce a product comprising light olefins selected from the group consisting of ethylene, propylene, and butenes, and tar, said tar is then separated from said light olefins in a primary fractionating column downstream of said pyrolysis furnace, and then said tar is provided to step (a).