Crude cracking

Faced with the need of obtaining more transportation fuels from a barrel of crude, Ashland developed the Reduced Crude Conversion Process (RCC ). To support this development, a residuum or reduced crude cracking catalyst was developed and over 1,000 tons were produced and employed in commercial operation. The catalyst possessed a large pore volume, dual pore structure, an Ultrastable Y zeolite with an acidic matrix equal in acidity to the acidity of the zeolite, and was partially treated with rare earth to enhance cracking activity and to resist vanadium poisoning. 

They began reduced crude cracking experimentation in a small 12,000 barrel per day (B/D) Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) operating unit at Louisville, Ky. The RCC process was born from these goals, concepts and a small operating unit. The development and attributes of this process have been described in a number of articles and patents (1-6). 

Hettinger Jr, W. P. Development of a Reduced Crude Cracking Catalyst. Chapter 19 in ACS Symposium Series 375, Edited by M. L. Occelli. Washington, DC ACS, 1988. 

Kureha crude oil steam cracking technology was devdoped jointly with Union Carbide for the manufacture of ethylene (see Section 2.13.4). By operating at very temperature and with very short xomact dmes (0LOO3 to 0.010 s), approximately equal amounts of acetylene and ethylene can be produced from a number of crude oils. This is illustrated by Table 52 for Indonesian and Arabian crudes, cracked in the presence of steam at 2000 in a steam to feed weight rado of about 5, and with residence time of O.OOS s. In these conditions, the temperature at the reactor exit before quench reaches 1150-C. /... 

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