Sour Water in Vacuum Unit

[KazakhJeff]

We run a vacuum tower with steam ejectors, and send the sour water directly to offsites for purification. We have heard that elsewhere refiners run this sour water to their desalters. Any comments please? Are there any particular problems with this? We are nervous about doing this due to phenol content in our sour water. Has anyone heard of phenols creating any problems, particularly with properties of Jet Fuel.

 

[25362]

Here are some points that may be of help:

1. Crude oils contain phenols in varying proportions.

2. Phenols in crude processing are generally formed by the reaction between steam and cyclic hydrocarbons.

3. Stripped and cooled sour water is frequently sent to the crude desalters, which acting as liquid/liquid extractors, manage to transfer up to 95% of the phenols in water into the crude oil feed stream without ulterior difficulties.

4. While some naturally-occurring phenols are useful gum inhibitors, malodorous thiophenols and the more reactive alkyl phenols found in "cracked" gasolines, tend to accelerate gum formation. Therefore the normal practice is to apply prompt and thorough caustic washing to such gasolines as soon as they are produced.