Residual chlorides in desalted crude oil are a serious threat to the safety of crude distillation units and considerably harm subsequent processing of crude oil. In particular, these chlorides in crude oil and distillates can corrode the refinery equipment, block the pipeline, and poison the catalyst. This work investigated the distribution and identification of chlorides in distillates from YS crude oil on the basis of true boiling point (TBP) distillation technology, and completed the thermodynamic analyses on hydrolysis of organic chlorides under the operating conditions of crude oil distillation in refinery. A total of twenty one distillates and one residual oil (&gt;500 °C) were obtained by TBP distillation from YS crude oil, which was categorized into low-acid light crude oil. The YS crude oil depicted the characteristic that the more element chlorine existed in the light distillates and residual oil. The organic chlorides were observed as predominant one among all distillates instead of inorganic chlorine compounds. Meanwhile, Seventeen kinds of organic chlorides were identified from nine light distillates (IBP to 220 °C) via gas chromatography with electron capture detection (GC-ECD) and these chlorides coexisted in almost all distillates below 220 °C. The Gibbs free energy change of the chloride hydrolysis was estimated using the specified concentration of steam and products of chloride hydrolysis, the hydrolytic possibility of these organic chlorides and the origin of the corrosive hydrogen chloride was revealed in YS crude oil distillation.

Study on the origin of corrosive hydrogen chloride in crude oil distillation from the viewpoint of organic chlorides

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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