The lectures give an up-to-date and essential knowledge of the chemical industrial processes used to transform the petroleum into chemicals and final products, for chemical industry and manufacturing, respectively. Chemical, technological and economical issues are investigated. The necessary knowledge for the use of a professional software to simulate chemical processes is developed, and single equipments, as well as whole processes, are designed, with particular emphasis on crude oil transformation.

Aims of the course are the development of abilities in the chemical process evaluation for industrial production, the application of theoretical principles to control the conversion of a raw material into a chemical product, the identification of the process parameters playing a critical role on the transformation and the gathering of factors critical for the product cost reduction. Moreover, the course is planned to develop the student expertise on models handling, for single equipment or whole plant process representation, with the task of verification of the process performances, parameters optimization and simulation result presentation. At the end of the course, it is expected that the student has knowledge on: - industrial cycles for transformation of petroleum into chemicals, - critical parameters that control the chemical transformations on a large scale, - the problems related to chemical processes modelling, - the characteristics of a professional process simulator, - how to present in an effective form the results obtained using a process simulator; It is expected that he/she has the following capacities: - evaluate the suitability of a hydrocarbons transformation process on industrial scale, - develop useful models for process simulation, - identify suitable thermodynamic methods for the description of the single steps of a chemical process, - employ a process simulator to design equipment and processes, - analyze the results obtained through process simulation; It is expected that he/she is able: - to identify a suitable industrial process for the production of a specified chemical product, - to change the process conditions to reach the specification target about the product, - to present in a suitable way the results obtained through process simulation.

The course can be followed if the student has the basic knowledge of: - principles of general and organic chemistry, - operating basic principles of the equipments used in the industrial chemistry, like heat exchangers, absorption columns, distillation equipments or chemical reactors, - thermodynamic methods for property evaluation of chemical compounds and for liquid-vapour equilibrium analysis.

Petroleum, a raw material. Economic and historical aspects of the industrial exploitation of hydrocarbon mixtures. Industrial products from petrochemistry. Technological evaluation of hydrocarbon mixtures. Crude oil distillation. Fractions composition. Distillation curves. Technological properties and their graphical representation. Refining processes. Hydrocarbon fractions for energy and petrochemistry. Refining processes of gaseous mixtures by absorption and adsorption. Hydrotreating of liquid fractions. Conversion of liquid and gaseous fraction. Catalysts for hydrocarbon interconversion. Catalytic cracking, alkylation, isomerisation, isomerisation, oligomerization and catalytic reforming. Petroleum fractions. Product specifications. Blending. Additives. Environmental pollution by hydrocarbons. Ecological and safety criteria in the hydrocarbon mixture handling. Flammability. Production of light olefins. Ethylene. Olefins and diolefins from steam cracking. Reaction schemes. Unsaturated product separation and purification. Butadiene and isoprene from chemicals. Production of aromatics. Sources of aromatic hydrocarbons. Separation of BTX mixtures. Processes for separation and purification of aromatic C8 isomers. Alkylaromatics conversion. Aromatic derivatives. Chemicals. Monomers. Solvents. Light olefins derivatives through oxosynthesis, selective oxidation, hydration and halogenations. Process development through process simulation. Importance of the mathematical models in for process description and analysis. Problems and drawbacks in the process simulation practice. Criteria for simplified models selection. Selection of thermodynamic methods. Methods for the presentation of the simulation results. Design of basic equipments for chemical processes. Design and optimization of heat exchangers, absorption or adsorption columns, distillation units, liquid-liquid contactors and chemical reactors through a professional process simulator. Design of industrial processes. Design and optimization of industrial processes with energy integration and internal recycling. Applications to petrochemical processes for polymer production.

Lectures are integrated with numerical exercises where students are asked to solve simple problems connected with the subject of the lesson. A specific cycle of computing practice is developed in a computer laboratory (LAIB) with the use of a process simulator for the design of specific chemical equipments and plants. Aim of the practice is to become friendly with computing software for equipment and chemical process design, with particular reference to petroleum technology and polymer production. At first, the teacher illustrates the subject of the computing work together with exposition of solutions for some reference cases. Later, under teacher tutoring, each student tackles and solves some specific design problems.

Texts and exercises will be available on the web student site. To deepen the subjects of the course: P. J. Chenier, Survey of Industrial Chemistry, Plenum Publisher, 2002 C. Giavarini, Processi di raffinazione e petrolchimici, Siderea, Roma, 1999.

Slides; Dispense; Esercizi; Esercizi risolti; Video lezioni tratte da anni precedenti;

Modalitą di esame: Prova scritta in aula tramite PC con l'utilizzo della piattaforma di ateneo;

Exam: Computer-based written test in class using POLITO platform;

... The students are requested to solve some simple exercises requiring to use the process simulator and to answer to questions about theoretical issues, chemical processes description and simple calculations. The duration of the exam is approximately 2 hours. The use of any kind of didactic material is not allowed during the exam.

Gli studenti e le studentesse con disabilitą o con Disturbi Specifici di Apprendimento (DSA), oltre alla segnalazione tramite procedura informatizzata, sono invitati a comunicare anche direttamente al/la docente titolare dell'insegnamento, con un preavviso non inferiore ad una settimana dall'avvio della sessione d'esame, gli strumenti compensativi concordati con l'Unitą Special Needs, al fine di permettere al/la docente la declinazione pił idonea in riferimento alla specifica tipologia di esame.