Production of Petroleum Wax from Nile Blend Oil

Abstract

Petroleum wax is a substance, which has many applications and economical value today. The production of petroleum wax in the world about 3.6x 109 ton per year, valued at nearly $2 billion. The basic raw material for paraffin wax is petroleum crude oil and lubricating oil. Although the availability of Sudan petroleum crude oil which contain large amount of paraffin wax and availability of refineries for crude oil, there are no units in these refineries for production of wax. Sudan now imports paraffin wax to cover its needs (145.3058 ton). In this research, paraffin wax is extracted from Nile Blend oil under the best and most economical operating conditions (the used sample contains 26% paraffin wax). The laboratorial experiments of extraction are done in three steps: In the first step the asphaltene is removed, in the second step the solvents in which the paraffin wax dissolves is added and in the last step the solution is chilled to precipitate the paraffin wax. For dissolution of paraffin wax in Nile Blend oil, the following solvents are used: -Methyl ethyl ketone, -Methyl ethyl ketone(75%) + Toluene(25%) -Methyl ethyl ketone(50%) + Toluene(50%) -Methyl ethyl ketone(70% ) + Toluene (20%)and Naphtha(10%) The laboratorial experiments of extraction wax is done for a wide range of temperature (28 – 70°C), mixing time of solvent and sample (5 – 30 minutes) and solvent to sample ratio (16:1 – 32:1). The results revealed that the best conditions to extract 100 % of paraffin wax from Nile Blend crude oil are: Temperature 60°C Mixing time of solvent and sample is 25 minutes Solvent to sample ratio is 20:1. And the best solvent is methyl ethyl ketone.