Iran's second tar refinery will be inaugurated in Kerman this week, Iranian Mines & Mining Industries Development & Renovation said on its website.
Zarand Tar Refinery, with an annual production capacity of 30,000 tons, is one of IMIDRO's major projects, which is ready for operation following the completion of the coker unit and gas refinery, Tasnim News Agency reported. Total cost of machinery and equipment from China's Citic Group stood at $1.3 million, while the cost of domestic manufacturing and installation of other equipment and machineries is estimated at 33 billion rials ($988,000).
Tar is a black mixture of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. A coker or coker unit is an oil refinery processing unit that converts residual oil from the vacuum distillation column or the atmospheric distillation column into low molecular weight hydrocarbon gases, naphtha, light and heavy gas oils, and petroleum coke.
The process thermally cracks the long chain hydrocarbon molecules in the residual oil feed into shorter chain molecules, leaving behind excess carbon in the form of petroleum coke.
