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Oil refining is a branch of industry that delivers energy to move our vehicles. The transportation of people and goods by airplanes, ships, trains, trucks, buses, and cars is unthinkable for modern mankind without the use of refined petroleum automotive fuels. Thus, the optimal functioning of this industrial branch is vital to contemporary human society. The modeling of processes that take place during refined oil products' manufacturing, which are parallel in their essence, by generalized nets enables their activity optimization and better management. The generalized nets, which are in principle extensions of Petri nets, are applied in this research as a toolkit to model all processes from crude oil selection and delivery to a high complex refinery (Nelson index of 10.6) to the production of a great diversity of fuels, propylene, and polypropylene. The proposed article is a continuation and extension of the articles, published in Mathematics Journal in 2021 and 2023. It is the first (theoretical part) of our comprehensive study of modeling petroleum products' production processes in a refinery, and the second part will discuss the results of the software implementation of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generalized nets (GNs) are a suitable tool for the modeling of parallel processes. Through them, it is possible to describe the functioning and results of the performance of complex real processes running in time. In a series of articles, we consistently describe the main processes involved in the production of petroleum products taking place in an oil refinery. The GN models can be used to track the actual processes in the oil refinery in order to monitor them, make decisions in case of changes in the environment, optimize some of the process components, and plan future actions. This study models the heavy oil production process in a refinery using the toolkit of GNs. Five processing units producing ten heavy-oil-refined products in an amount of 106.5 t/h from 443 t/h atmospheric residue feed, their blending, pipelines, and a tank farm devoted to storage of finished products consisting of three grades of fuel oil (very low sulfur fuel oil (0.5%S) —3.4 t/h; low sulfur fuel oil (1.0%S) —4.2 t/h; and high sulfur fuel oil (2.5%S) —66.9 t/h), and two grades of road pavement bitumen (bitumen 50/70 —30 t/h and bitumen 70/100 —2 t/h) are modeled in a GN medium. This study completes the process of modeling petroleum product production in an oil refinery using GNs. In this way, it becomes possible to construct a highly hierarchical model that incorporates the models already created for the production of individual petroleum products into a single entity, which allows for a comprehensive analysis of the refinery's operations and decision making concerning the influence of various factors such as disruptions in the feedstock supply, the occurrence of unplanned shutdowns, optimization of the production process, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of petroleum refinery wastewater (PRWW) is of great interest in industrial wastewater management. This wastewater contains a diverse concentration of contaminants such as oil and grease, petroleum hydrocarbons, phenols, ammonia, and sulfides, as well as other organic and inorganic composites. Refinery wastewater treatment has been attempted through various processes, including physical, biological, chemical, and hybrid methods, which combine two or more techniques. This review aims to summarize current research studies involved in the treatment of petroleum refinery wastewater using conventional, advanced, and integrated treatment techniques. Furthermore, it critically highlights the efficiencies and major limitations of each technique and the prospects for improvements. Several conventional treatment techniques (basically, the physicochemical and biological processes) are discussed. In this context, advanced oxidation processes (AoPs), especially electrochemical oxidation and photocatalysis, as well as integrated/hybrid processes are found to be effective in removing the recalcitrant fraction of organic pollutants through their various inherent mechanisms. These techniques could effectively remove COD and phenol concentrations with an average removal efficiency exceeding 90%. Hence, the review also presents an elaborate discussion of the photocatalytic process as one of the advanced techniques and highlights some basic concepts to optimize the degradation efficiency of photocatalysts. Finally, a brief recommendation for research prospects is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The parallel processes involved in the production of refinery fuel gas, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), propylene, and polypropylene, occurring in thirteen refinery units, are modeled by the use of a Generalized Net (GN) apparatus. The modeling of the production of these products is important because they affect the energy balance of petroleum refinery and the associated emissions of greenhouse gases. For the first time, such a model is proposed and it is a continuation of the investigations of refinery process modelling by GNs. The model contains 17 transitions, 55 places, and 47 types of tokens, and considers the orders of fuel gas for the refinery power station, refinery process furnaces, LPG, liquid propylene, and 6 grades of polypropylene. This model is intended to be used as a more detailed lower-level GN model in a higher-level GN model that facilitates and optimizes the process of decision making in the petroleum refining industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment of the petroleum refinery wastewater containing complex chemicals using biological processes is usually challenging because of the inhibition and/or toxicity of these matters when they serve as microbial substrates. In addition, performance modeling and cost evaluation of processes are essential for designing, construction, and forecasting future economic requirements of the petroleum refinery wastewater treatment plants (PRWWTPs). In this study, the performance and economics of conventional activated sludge (CAS) process replacing by sequencing batch reactor (SBR) technology in a two train PRWWTP were evaluated using simulation. The final treated euent characteristics for the PRWWTPs containing CAS + CAS and SBR + CAS processes under steady state conditions were studied and evolution of the main parameters of the final euent during the 30 days of simulation for these plants were investigated. Finally, the total project construction, operation labor, maintenance, material, chemical, energy, and amortization costs of these plants were estimated and compared. Results demonstrated that the project construction cost of PRWWTP containing CAS + CAS processes was lower than that of PRWWTP containing SBR + CAS processes and the energy and amortization costs for both plants were higher in comparison with the operation, maintenance, material, and chemical costs. Note that this study is a computer simulation and drawing general conclusions only on the basis of computer simulation may be insufficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]