Patent ID: 7204928

Claim:
A process for the fractional distillation of crude oil, which comprises the steps of: a) providing a turbomixer comprising a tubular cylindrical body provided with a heating jacket, at least one inlet opening, and at least one outlet opening, and comprising a rotor provided with helically oriented paddles and rotatably supported inside said body; b) feeding a continuous current of crude oil, as preliminarily desalted and heated to 310–400° C., into said turbomixer, with the turbomixer wall being heated to the same temperature as the inflow current of crude oil; c) supplying a steam current continuously in the same direction as said crude oil current; d) subjecting both said currents to the mechanical action of said paddled rotor, as driven for a peripheral velocity of at least 15 m/s, so as to intimately blend both currents together, centrifuging the blended currents against said heated wall to create a dynamic thin tubular layer in turbulent motion thereon, and conveying the blended currents to said at least one outlet opening; e) continuously discharging said blended currents and feeding them into a fractionating column, at a predetermined height level in the column, to produce an upward-flowing vapor current and a downward-flowing liquid current therein; and f) continuously discharging said downward-flowing liquid current from the bottom of said column and continuously feeding it into said turbomixer in the same direction as said crude oil current.