METHOD OF LOWERING TOTAL CRUDE OIL ACID NUMBER Russian patent published in 2003 - IPC

FIELD: crude oil treatment. SUBSTANCE: reduction of level of organic acids in oil stock comprises: (i) heat treatment of organic acid-containing oil stock in thermal reaction zone including a multitude of consecutive steps at temperature and pressure appropriate for a partial decomposition of organic acids when multiple steps are purged with inert gas to produce volatile hydrocarbon fraction containing organic acids and nonvolatile hydrocarbon fraction; (ii) treating abovementioned volatile hydrocarbon fraction to neutralize part of organic acid contained therein and to produce treated volatile hydrocarbon fraction; (iii) collecting above-mentioned nonvolatile hydrocarbon fraction from thermal reaction zone; and (iv) mixing treated volatile hydrocarbon fraction from operation (ii) with collected nonvolatile hydrocarbon fraction. EFFECT: enabled easy way of neutralizing and decomposing organic acids, in particular naphthenic acids. 10 cl, 1 dwg, 5 ex