Texas Co. v. Anderson-Prichard Refining Corporation

• Decision Date: 03 November 1941
• Docket Number: No. 2171.,2171.
• Citation: 122 F.2d 829
• Parties: TEXAS CO. v. ANDERSON-PRICHARD REFINING CORPORATION.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

122 F.2d 829 (1941)

TEXAS CO. v. ANDERSON-PRICHARD REFINING CORPORATION.

No. 2171.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

September 2, 1941.

Rehearing Denied November 3, 1941.

Drury W. Cooper, of New York City (Benjamin B. Schneider and Newton A. Burgess, both of New York City, Brady Cole, of Houston, Tex., and B. A. Ames, of Oklahoma City, Okl., on the brief), for appellant.

Thorley von Holst, of Chicago, Ill., Arthur C. Denison, of Cleveland, Ohio, and J. Bernhard Thiess, of Chicago, Ill. (Joseph G. Carey, of Wichita, Kan., J. H. Jarman, of Oklahoma City, Okl., and Sidney Neuman and Robert W. Poore, both of Chicago, Ill., on the brief), for appellee.

Before PHILLIPS, BRATTON, and MURRAH, Circuit Judges.

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge.

The Texas Company brought this suit against Anderson-Prichard Refining Corporation¹ for alleged infringement of claims 12, 14, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, and 41² of patent No. 1,883,850. It was applied for November 21, 1918, and granted October 18, 1932.³ From a judgment dismissing the suit, Texas Company has appealed.

In their brief, counsel for Texas Company state that claim 39 may be regarded as typical. It reads as follows:

"39. A process of cracking oil which comprises

"(1) subjecting oil in a fired heating zone to a cracking temperature solely by the application of external heat,

"(2) delivering the highly heated oil into a heat insulated zone where separation of vapors from residual oil takes place,

"(3) discharging the residual oil,

"(4) subjection separated vapors to partial condensation to separate out the heavier constituents thereof as a condensate,

"(5) removing uncondensed vapors,

"(6) and positively returning condensate unmixed with residual oil by maintained mechanically applied pressure to the heating zone for further treatment, and

"(7) continuously supplying charging stock to the process."

In his specification Behimer states, "This invention relates to methods of making condensable light oils, such as gasoline"; in prior methods of cracking hydrocarbon oils, carbon forms on the sides of the tubes and stills exposed to sufficient heat to effect the cracking operation; the carbon causes choking of the tubes and coils and crystallizes the metal surfaces, thereby decreasing the tensile strength of the metal causing it to bulge and break; and in cracking oil for gasoline, there is generally formed a considerable quantity of vapors heavier than gasoline, generally called kerosene; and that under existing methods, it has been found difficult to crack kerosene into lighter products.

He further states: "It is a broad novel feature of the herein disclosed process that substantially all of the cracking operation occurs in a vessel to which no external heat is applied, except at such times and in such quantities as are necessary to compensate for heat losses, the oil prior to its introduction to such vessel having been subjected to a high degree of cracking heat and the excess heat of the oil itself being used to effect its own decomposition. As a consequence, I avoid substantial carbon formations. * * * The removal of the cracking operation from the heating zone also reduces the danger from fires. * * *"⁴ An apparatus for utilizing the process is illustrated by the following patent drawing:

Behimer described the process with reference to the apparatus illustrated, substantially as follows: The oil to be treated is forced through the charging line 7 under considerable pressure and is rapidly flowed through the heating coil 1 where it is heated to the desired cracking temperature.⁵ The oil in passing through the coil acquires a high cracking temperature but, due to the rapidity of its flow, cracking is in the incipient stages only when the oil is discharged through pipe 9 into the heat-insulated cracking drum 11 where a constant body of oil is maintained at a cracking temperature under pressure. The distributor 9a discharges the oil into the cracking drum in a wide stream thereby mixing the hot oil with the body of oil maintained in the drum and diffusing the heat there-through. The rapid flow of the oil through the coil where it is closely confined is suddenly retarded as the oil enters the drum which is of ample volume. The excess heat of the oil maintains the body of oil in the drum at the desired cracking temperature and cracking is effected. The vapors and gases generated gather in the upper part of the cracking drum and pass out through vapor outlet 13 to the separator 15 where there is a separation of hydrocarbons of desired volatility from those of less volatility. The former pass out through the vapor line 16 to condenser 18 where they are condensed. The condensed distillate passes to the collecting tank 21.

The temperature in the separator 15 is such that the less volatile hydrocarbons are condensed and dropped into conduit 17, by which they are conducted while still hot to the jet in the charging line or other suitable mechanical pressure device for forcing them into the charging stream. The pressure in the charging stream is maintained from 50 to 100 pounds higher than the pressure in the drum. This insures that the reflux in conduit 17 shall be constantly and positively drawn into the charging line. This hot condensate thus introduced into the charging line increases the volume of oil in the heating coil, accelerates the flow therein, producing a foamy mixture, prevents local overheating in the coil and keeps it free from carbon formations. This reflux does not yield any great amount of carbon and dilutes the carbon-forming charging stock. The reflux reaching the coil while hot also contributes to the maintenance of the proper temperatures "in the heating coil and cracking drum." The residuum is withdrawn through draw-off valve 12 at a rate which maintains a constant body of oil in the cracking drum. Auxiliary heat may be applied to the cracking drum sufficient to offset the loss of heat due to radiation and distillation.

Behimer states that by the foregoing described processes he avoids carbon formation in the heating coil, successfully cracks kerosene fractions in the reflux, and obtains a cracked product remarkably sweet or low in unsaturated compounds.

At the time Behimer commenced the experiments which resulted in his discovery, it was well known that heavier hydrocarbons would decompose or crack into lighter constituents upon being subjected to a proper temperature for a sufficient period of time. Commercial cracking processes to make gasoline had been successfully carried out by heating and cracking oil in directly fired drums or tanks and in directly fired tubes or coils.

In all such processes then practiced and since developed, the principal problem to be solved arises from the fact that when hydrocarbon oils are subjected to the temperature and time necessary to crack them, the molecular rearrangement or chemical reaction, known as cracking, tends to produce carbon and heavy materials rich in carbon. The deposit of carbon on highly heated surfaces insulates the metal, causes it to become overheated and lessens its strength, causing the coils or drums to bulge, burst, or crack.

Long prior to Behimer, it was fully appreciated that carbon-laden residue from a cracking operation should never be returned as a charge to the same operation nor used as a charge to another operation. In the prior Burton drum, Rittman tube, and de Florez coil cracking processes, the residue was cleaned up by distillation and only clean condensed vapors were used as charging stock.

Dephlegmation of the vapors resulting from the cracking operation and refluxing the insufficiently cracked portion of the vapors were commonly practiced and well known in the commercial art before Behimer. Dephlegmation is a necessary part of any cracking operation because due to Dalton's law of partial pressure, the vapors of the desired product, kerosene or gasoline as the case may be always leave the still mixed with vapors of heavier material which must be separated out by cooling and condensing them. This insufficiently treated material, so condensed, is usually referred to as reflux. In drum cracking processes such as Burton's, the reflux was continuously returned by gravity, while still hot, to the cracking drum. In the once-through tube or coil cracking process, it was separated out and returned subsequently either in the same or in a later operation.

The prior patent art⁶ had broadly taught the steps in a cracking process of returning reflux to the heating zone for further treatment and continuously withdrawing the carbon-containing residue and not returning it to the system.

The continuous coil cracking process of Rittman and de Florez operated with continuous charge and continuous withdrawal and nonreturn of residue. They did not return the hot reflux for retreatment during the operation due to the lack of a pump suitable for handling the hot materials.

A continuous once-through coil cracking process with residue withdrawn was taught in British Benton patent No. 1922.

Before Behimer entered the field, there were in commercial operation, two schools of cracking, one, the liquid phase method where a body of liquid oil was cracked and distilled generally in a tank or drum maintained under superatmospheric pressure, and the other a vapor and liquid vapor phase where the oil was heated and vaporized either completely or to a substantial degree, and cracked in a tube or coil.

Liquid phase processes were at first preferred because they operated at low temperatures and with a long time factor and made a product most closely resembling the white, sweet, natural gasoline, low in unsaturates, of simple distillation operations which was the standard product when Behimer entered the field. Vapor or liquid vapor phase processes operated at high temperatures and with a short time factor and made a product unlike natural gasoline, being rich in unsaturates...