Koa Oil Company, Limited

Honami Tanaka

Kosaku Noguchi

Eiji Kitajima

Yukimasa Kumura

Tomonori Sunada

Hirokazu Teraoka

Kiyoharu Yoshimura

Masao Hayashi

Toshifumi Ishitobi

Heima Yamazaki

Noriyuki Tsuchiya

Yoshiharu Ohmoto

This invention relates to a coking unit for producing coke articles of good quality from feed material heavy oils with a variety of properties and more specifically relates to a delayed coking unit comprising a heating furnace and coking drums connected in this sequence with piping. This invention is characterized in that an intermediate drum independently equipped with pressure and temperature controlling means is provided, said intermediate drum being small in volume in comparison with that of said coking drum, so that substantially all of the amount of products treated in said intermediate drum is supplied into the coking drum.

Coking process

A heavy oil such as an atmospheric pressure residue, a reduced pressure residue of petroleum, etc. is heated to 400.degree. to 500.degree. C. to carry out polycondensation and provide a pitch containing mesophase microspheres. This pitch is once cooled to 200.degree. to 400.degree. C. and a turbulent flow is imparted thereto to cause agglomeration of the mesophase microspheres. The resulting agglomerates are separated to obtain a crystallizable material enriched with quinoline insolubles. Production of the crystallizable material is preferably conducted in a separation tank accommodating the lower part of a heating polycondensation reactor (6) and having a stirring device (12).

Apparatus for production of crystallizable carbonaceous material

Bulk mesophase can be economically produced without coking trouble from a heavy oil in an apparatus comprising: a heat-treatment vessel for heat treating the oil thereby to form pitch containing mesophase microspheres; a cyclone-type separator installed directly below the vessel and operating to cause the mesophase microspheres within the pitch introduced into the separator to coalesce thereby to separate the mesophase microspheres from the matrix pitch; and ascent and descent pipes communicatively connecting the interiors of the vessel and the separator, the ascent pipe returning matrix pitch after removal of the mesophase microspheres into the vessel together with newly supplied oil, which drives the matrix pitch by jet-pump action, the descent pipe introducing the pitch with mesophase microsphere into the top part of the separator in a horizontal tangential direction to produce a cyclone separation action therein.

Apparatus for producing bulk mesophase

Method and apparatus for production of crystallizable carbonaceous

Mesocarbon microbeads of narrow particle-size distribution are produced by: subjecting a heavy oil to a primary heat treatment at a temperature T.sub.1 to prepare a pitch containing mesophase microspheres; once cooling this pitch to a temperature lower than its softening point; thereafter subjecting the pitch to a secondary heat treatment at a temperature T.sub.2, which is higher than 350.degree. C. and lower than (T.sub.1 -40.degree. C.); cooling the pitch at a cool rate lower than 200.degree. C./hour; separating from the pitch mesophase microspheres which precipitated in the secondary heat-treatment step; and thereafter obtaining by solvent extraction mesophase microspheres of substantially uniform particle size formed in the residual pitch. The mesocarbon beads of narrow particle-size distribution thus obtained are particularly suitable for use as chromatograph packing material, catalyst support, and other uses.

Process for producing mesocarbon microbeads of uniform particle-size

Mesocarbon microbeads are continuously produced by the steps of: (1) mixing a matrix pitch, mesophase microspheres, and a solvent in which the pitch will dissolve but the microspheres will not, thereby to prepare a liquid mixture of a solution and dispersion; (2) processing the mixture in at least two stages of liquid cyclones, thereby to separate it into light and medium-weight liquids and a heavy liquid containing most of the microspheres; and (3) evaporating off the solvent from the heavy liquid thus obtained, thereby to obtain the microspheres as mesocarbon microbeads. The solvent is evaporated off from the light liquid to recover the pitch, and the medium-weight liquid is recycled to step (1) and (2).

Continuous process for industrially producing mesocarbon microbeads

An effective and regenerable oil adsorbent is obtained from a pitch-like substance formed by heat-treating a heavy hydrocarbon oil to such an extent that the volatile matter content thereof is about 10% by weight to about 60% by weight, preferably about 30 to about 50% by weight. By using this oil adsorbent, oil-removing purification treatment of oil-contaminated water can be effectively achieved with economical advantages.

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Osaka, Japan

Honami Tanaka