Improvement of Egyptian vacuum distillates by urea dewaxing

The dewaxing of paraffinic lube stocks is an essential step in the production of lubricants to improve the operability of machines especially in winter. The present work deals with study of the urea dewaxing process of two types of Egyptian vacuum distillates. The effect of different compositions of methanol to water saturated with urea and yield of the oil, percent of wax, pour point, refractive index, viscosity, viscosity index and specific gravity of the oil produced from the two types of distillates (I and II) were evaluated. The operating conditions of the urea adduct formation with n-paraffins using methanol to water mixture achieved the best pour point at −3.88 °C from an initial temperature of 4.4 °C for distillate I at (25/75) methanol to water. At the same ratio of methanol to water the best specific gravity of oil produced changed from 0.865 to 0.867, with viscosity index of 80. Percent yield of 50% for oil and percent wax of 50% were obtained. Results for distillate II, of higher specific gravity, are comparatively higher than those for distillate I. Experiments were carried out at room temperature.