Patent ID: 6331245
Filing Date: 2001-12-18
Classification: B01J,C10C,C10L,Y02E

Abstract:
A process for pelletizing petroleum resid, comprising:heating the resid to a temperature at which it is in a liquid state;continuously feeding the hot resid to an inlet of a centrifugal prilling head comprising a plurality of radially arrayed discharge orifices;rotating the prilling head to discharge hot resid from the orifices into free space at an upper end of a pelletizing vessel having a diameter larger than a throw-away diameter of the discharged resid;allowing the discharged resid to break apart and form into substantially spherical pellets in a high temperature zone of the pelletizing vessel at which the resid is liquid and fall downwardly into a bath of a liquid cooling medium maintained at a temperature effective to solidify the pellets in a substantially spherical form;withdrawing a slurry of the solidified pellets and the cooling medium from the pelletizing vessel;substantially separating the pellets from the cooling medium.