Different ways of Bitumen 60/70 production:
Distillation Process
The easiest way of Bitumen 60/70 production would be using crude oil in a distillation tower, this residue has hydrocarbons with a high boiling point, high molecular weight, and low volatility. Crude oil is first distilled in the atmospheric tower and light compounds such as diesel are separated from it, and heavier compounds are removed from the end as residues. the rest of the atmospheric distillation tower material is sent to the vacuum distillation tower for further separation, where the remaining light compounds are also separated. The end output of the vacuum tower is known as the Vacuum Bottom which is used for producing Bitumen 60/70 in this method, to change the physical properties of the product and improve them, blowing air at high temperature into the above material is used.
Asphalting Production Process
Lubricants and bitumen can be separated from the Bitumen raw material by using special solvents. depending on the type of solvent used, different types of this Bitumen can be obtained. along with controllable parameters in the distillation tower, the process allows us to produce bitumen with different degrees of penetration. these two properties penetration and softening point are the two main parameters for selecting bitumen in engineering applications. other important physical properties include Temperature sensitivity, Adhesion, and Ductility which are all calculated by careful experiments.
Oxidation Production Process
It is the flow of air in the opposite direction of the bitumen in order to oxidize it. this operation results in the formation of molecules with high molecular mass and different structures from the raw material. in this, we can produce hard materials or Bitumen from the first soft raw materials.
Extraction of Bitumen naturally
In some areas, oil sands contain bitumen. these sands are sediments in which sand, clay compounds, water, and bitumen are together. in the first stage, surface extraction is used to recover oil sands, and then extraction is done from these sands, and on-site extraction is used for deeper resources in this method, the bitumen is heated and pumped out of the ground. this method had low efficiency since a long time ago, although newer methods and technologies have been able to improve this efficiency to some extent.
On-site extraction
In this method, a stream of hot steam is applied to the depths of the earth this stream of steam dissolves the bitumen and brings it to the surface. this mixed material is then sent to the separation unit where bitumen and water are separated. Although this method has been used for extraction since 1980, since 1995, on-site extraction has seen significant growth every year.
Leave A Comment