A process to convert paraffinic feedstocks into renewable poly-alpha-olefins (PAO) basestocks. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, renewable feed comprising triglycerides and/or free fatty acids are hydrotreated producing an intermediate paraffin feedstock. This paraffin feedstock is thermally cracked into a mixture of olefins and paraffins comprising linear alpha olefins. The olefins are separated and the un-reacted paraffins are recycled to the thermal cracker. Light olefins preferably are oligomerized with a surface deactivated zeolite producing a mixture of slightly branched oligomers comprising internal olefins. The heavier olefins (C8-C14) are oligomerized, preferably with a BF3 catalyst and co-catalyst to produce PAO products. The oligomerized products can be hydrotreated and distilled together or separate to produce finished products that include naphtha, distillate, solvents, drilling fluid, and PAO lube basestocks.

Process for reclaiming useful products from a waste oil, comprising a thermal separation step performed in a vessel at conditions, of temperature and pressure, allowing to substantially avoid cracking of the waste oil and to assure the separation of said heated waste oil into a first heavy oil fraction and into a second light oil fraction having, in comparison with the waste oil, a low content in solids and/or in other contaminants that are different from water and from inert gas. The process is further characterized in that while, during the thermal separation treatment, the waste oil is heated to a temperature about the boiling temperature of the heavy oil fraction, and below the cracking temperature of the waste oil, and at a pressure that is preferably below the atmospheric pressure, the heavy oil fraction of the vapours existing the vessel, in contact with a cooler surface, condenses and falls back into the vessel, while the second fraction, in a gaseous state, is eventually submitted to at least one further separation treatment. When water is present in the waste oil, said water is used to improve the amount of recovered light oils; and/or when no water is present in the waste oil, water or at least one inert gas or at least one component that may become an inert gas by heating may be added to the waste oil or to the thermal separation unit. Uses of the process for environmental applications and for treating used oils and to prepare oil products. Systems for reclaiming useful products from waste oils comprising at least one rotating kiln and at least one self-refluxing condenser and/or at least one dephlegmator.

A method and system desulfurizes fuel produced from pyrolysis of waste tires and includes hydroprocessing tire pyrolysis oil to desulfurize the tire pyrolysis oil and obtain a hydroprocessed pyrolysis oil. The hydroprocessed oil is distilled into at least two environmentally fuel products selected from the group consisting of kerosene, naphtha, fuel oil, fuel and diesel. By combining hydroprocessing with distillation, and advantageously recycling byproducts, the methods of this disclosure allow for conversion of waste tires into fuel in a manner that is commercially viable and sustainable.

A method for recovering synthetic oils from a feed stream, the method comprising separating at least a portion of the non-synthetic oil constituents from a commingled stream to produce a partially purified synthetic oil stream and one or more contaminant streams. Extracting at least a portion of the synthetic oil from the partially purified synthetic oil stream to produce a synthetic oil stream and a second contaminant stream.

A method for recovering synthetic oils from a feed stream, the method comprising separating at least a portion of the non-synthetic oil constituents from a commingled stream to produce a partially purified synthetic oil stream and one or more contaminant streams. Extracting at least a portion of the synthetic oil from the partially purified synthetic oil stream to produce a synthetic oil stream and a second contaminant stream.

A process and apparatus for re-refining used lubricating oil (ULO) having thermally unstable additives such as zinc compounds. ULO is mixed with a superheated distillate which may be a recycle stream, an outside stream, or combination, then charged to a vacuum flash or fractionator, to produce an overhead vapor and a residual fraction comprising additives and/or decomposition products thereof. Overhead vapor is condensed to yield a liquid lubricant boiling range product. Superheating may occur in a fired heater, heat exchanger or combination. Mixing of superheated fluid and ULO may occur in a pipe in turbulent flow and/or an in line mixer. Energy efficiency is improved by heat exchanging ULO feed with vapor or liquid product streams. An aromatic rich and thermally stable outside stream such as FCC LCO can be readily superheated. Recovered lubricant boiling range material can be recycled, used as a lube stock or for FCC feed.

Systems and methods are provided for block processing of a feedstock to produce multiple viscosity grades of lubricant base stocks with substantially different viscosity index values. The systems and methods can involve the use of a sweet stage hydrocracking catalyst that can maintain good aromatic saturation activity under conditions that produce substantially different levels of viscosity index uplift. Optionally, the reactor including the sweet stage hydrocracking catalyst can include additional aromatic saturation catalyst. The systems and methods can further involve using a combination of aromatic saturation catalyst and dewaxing catalyst in a second sweet stage reactor, so that additional aromatic saturation activity is available for saturation of aromatics for products that undergo lower amounts of conversion in the sweet hydrocracking stage. The systems and methods can also allow for increased control over the relative temperatures of reactors within a reaction system.

A process for creating higher quality and lower quality base oils from used lubricating oils and crude oils, wherein the higher quality base oils may be either Group III or Group II and the lower quality base oils may be either Group II or Group I. Vacuum gas oils produced from used lubricating oils and from crude oils are processed via two or more process steps, including solvent extraction, solvent or catalytic or iso dewaxing, and hydrotreating. Such process enables efficient conversion and operation of refineries formerly capable only of making Group I base oils, even as their ability to make heavier base oils, waxes, and bright stocks is preserved, substantially to the same extent as such products had been made prior to undertaking the conversion.

A process of producing Group III base oils, along with a naphtha product and diesel product, from whole waxy crude oil is provided. The inventive process omits the typical vacuum distillation stage and separations to form the typical cuts off of the vacuum tower. By selecting a waxy crude oil suitable for processing without separations, the crude oil may be hydroprocessed, dearomatized, dewaxed, and hydrofinished to produce a Group III base oil. Additionally, the dewaxing catalyst will isomerize the naphtha range molecules to increase the octane value to a suitable level for blending into gasoline and the diesel range molecules to reduce the diesel cloud point.

A continuous, hot vapor stripping process recovers base oil from used lubricating oils (ULO) containing lubricating oil boiling range material, with further refining using solvent extraction to produce a high quality base oil. The ULO is charged to a first stripping column along with a stripping vapor to vaporize lubricating oil boiling range components, which are fed to a second stripping column to separate diesel boiling range material from the lubricating oil boiling range components. A lubricating boiling range material is removed as a bottoms product and fed to a liquid-liquid extractor to produce a raffinate stream and an extract stream. The raffinate stream is fed to a raffinate distillation column, where a base oil product is recovered as a bottoms stream. The extract stream is fed to an extract distillation column, where an aromatic oil product is recovered as a bottoms stream.