Ebullated-Bed and Slurry-Phase Reactors

For the specific case of petroleum refining, in recent years, the use of EBR has renewed importance due to the sharp increase of heavy feedstocks sent to refineries and, consequently, to hydrocracking process. It is difficult to process these heavier feeds with conventional technologies, due to their high contents of sulfur, nitrogen, metals such as nickel and vanadium, and asphaltenes, which have great negative impact on catalyst activity and stability. 

Modeling of Processes and Reactors for Upgrading of Heavy Petroleum 

Slurry-phase hydrocracking systems convert heavy vacuum residues however, these processes are not yet fully commercialized. The feed to this type of reactor is the petroleum residue plus a solid carrier (commonly known as additive). The purpose of the additive is to provide a surface for the deposition of converted asphaltenes and metals, as the residue is hydrocracked. Slurry reactors operate at high temperature and pressure, and residue conversions higher than 90% (Kressmann et al., 1998). Unfortunately, these units produce poor-quality, hydrogen-deficient distillate and vacuum products that cannot be used as fuel, unless blended with something else, for example, coal or heavy fuel oil, due to their high content of sulfur and metals (Ancheyta and Speight, 2007). 

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Modeling of Ebullated-Bed and Slurry-Phase Reactors with the following boundary conditions ... 

Chapter 10 covers the modeling of ebullated-bed and slurry-phase reactors. Characteristics and commercial ebullated-bed technologies are described. The chapter concludes with detailed descriptions of reactor modeling. 

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