Bitumen is a black viscous mixture of hydrocarbons obtained naturally or as a residue from petroleum distillation. It is used for road surfacing and roofing.

Bitumen, also known as asphalt in the United States, is a substance that forms through the distillation of crude oil. Bitumen is viscous, nonvolatile liquid or solid. Bitumen is a complex colloid system the chemical properties of which are dependent on the properties of crude oil from which it is produced. Pure bitumen is a colloid dispersion of microscopic asphalt particles (dispersion phase).

Mass fraction of hydrocarbons is 75-85%, hydrogen 9-10%, oxygen 2-8%, sulphur 5-7%, and nitrogen 0.1-0.5%.

The crude oil is pumped from storage tanks, where it is kept at about 60°C, through a heat exchanger system where its temperature is increased to typically 200°C by exchanging heat gained from the cooling of newly produced products in the refining process. The crude is then further heated in a furnace to typically 300° C where it is partly vaporized into an Atmospheric Distillation Column. Here the physical separation of the components occurs. The lighter components rise to the top and the heaviest components (the atmospheric residue) fall to the bottom of the column and pass through a second heat exchanger prior to treatment in a vacuum distillation column. Finally, Bitumen is obtained by vacuum distillation or vacuum flashing of atmospheric residue from the vacuum distillation column. This is “straight run bitumen”. This process is called bitumen production by straight run vacuum distillation.

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