Iran's first delayed coker unit has been manufactured for Abadan Refinery, head of Downstream Pardis at the Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) said, Shana news agency reported Tuesday.
Pardis Downstream, which comprises six research institutions working on petrochemical projects, has conducted coking process studies over the past five years, Mansour Bazmi said, noting that the process is aimed at enhancing quality of refinery residuum and heavy oil products.
The RIPI, in collaboration with the Iranian Mines & Mining Industries Development & Renovation, will put into operation the first delayed coker unit, utilizing residua from the refinery's vacuum distillation tower.
A pilot unit was constructed at the RIPI, and final tests were carried out on the pilot unit. The RIPI has now undertaken manufacturing of a super pilot unit, which is in the final stages, Bazmi said.
The delayed coker unit will not only provide the coke needed for the aluminum industry but is also used in 60 percent of middle-distillate fractions as catalytic cracking feedstock.
Coking is a refinery unit operation that upgrades material called bottoms from the atmospheric or vacuum distillation column into higher-value products and, as the name implies, produces petroleum coke—a coal-like material.
A delayed coker is a type of coker whose process consists of heating a residual oil feed to its thermal cracking temperature in a furnace with multiple parallel passes. This cracks the heavy, long chain hydrocarbon molecules of the residual oil into coker gas oil and petroleum coke.
