Fluid catalytic cracking factors

Many factors enter into the design of a fluid bed reactor which are unknown in more familiar reactor types. These can be illustrated with reference to fluid catalytic cracking. 

The manufacture and use of petroleum-based fuels has been a major factor in the growth and content of chemical engineering. Chemical engineers have pioneered advances in separations, catalytic processes such as fluid catalytic cracking, hydroprocessing, and many others. Many of the advances in chemical engineering science have been stimulated by the need for quantitative understanding of these processes. 

Of the many factors which influence product yields in a fluid catalytic cracker, the feed stock quality and the catalyst composition are of particular interest as they can be controlled only to a limited extent by the refiner. In the past decade there has been a trend towards using heavier feedstocks in the FCC-unit. This trend is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. It is therefore important to study how molecular types, characteristic not only of heavy petroleum oil but also of e.g. coal liquid, shale oil and biomass oil, respond to cracking over catalysts of different compositions. 

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