This research study focused on the need to curb scarcity and importation of petroleum finished products in oil-producing nation Nigeria through the operation of conventional modular refineries in conjunction with major refineries operating efficiently. Hence, the study focused on the suitability and operations of conventional modular refinery processes by considering twenty different types of Nigerian crude oil for crude oil assay analysis and classification using Aspen Hysys. The crude oil assay results categorized the twenty Nigerian crude oil types as light and medium sweet crude, while based on recovery volume percent at a true boiling point of 370˚C, the twenty crude oil types were categorized into Group A (crude oil with recovery volume above 80%), Group B (crude oil with recovery volume between 70% and 79%) and Group C (crude oil with recovery volume below 70%) respectively. Besides, light and medium sweet oil types were simulated in a conventional modular refinery (topping plant) at different numbers of column trays (25, 29, 35, 40 and 48) to determine their product yield. Based on product yield and equipment costs at different numbers of tray columns, a modular refinery with twenty-nine column trays was applied in this study. Thus, twenty Nigerian crude oil types were simulated in a conventional modular refinery of 30,000 barrel per day capacity and twenty-nine column trays respectively to evaluate their product yield and tray compositions.
Industrial production of vegetable oil from palm kernel seed operational process was analysed in this research study with the extractor unit as the main focus of the study. The extractor unit consist of nine operational stages, which was modeled by applying the principle of the law of conservation of mass and energy respectively. The developed models were a set of ordinary differential equations, which were solved by using MatLab ODE 45 solver by applying industrial extractor plant data of Vegetable Oil Production Company. The developed models' results were compared with the industrial extractor plant data in terms of mass fraction of oil and temperature of the raffinate and mass fraction of oil and temperature of the extract and these yielded an absolute percentage error (deviation) of 7.0, 9.52, 3.29 and 2.29 respectively. Thus, the deviations are within the acceptable limits, which shows that the developed models predicts adequately the extraction process of vegetable oil production. In addition, the effects of mass flow rates of raffinate and extraction solvent were studied with increase in mass flow rate of raffinate reduces contact time between extraction solvent and the cake thereby reducing the efficiency of the extraction process with maximum amount of oil been extracted at the minimum flow rate of 300Kg/hr.
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