Gas oil cracker

Traditional olefin plants have more than one alias. One is even fraudulent. They are variously called ethylene plants after their primary product steam crackers because the feed is usiuilly mixed with steam before it is cracked or whatever aacker, where whatever is the name of the feed (ethane cracker, gas oil cracker, etc.). Olefin plants are sometimes referred to as ethylene crackers, biit only those who don t know any better, use that misnomer. Ethylene is not cracked but rather is the product of cracking. 

The separation section of a gas oil cracker looks like a small refinery, as you can see in Figure 5 or in Figure 5—5. In addition to the fractionators and treaters used in the purification section of the simpler ethane cracker, there are facilities to separate the heavier coproducts. In the front end of the separator facilities in Figure 5-4, the cold box option for handling the liquefaction of the gases is shown. Temperatures as low as -220°F are achieved in this super-refrigerator. At those low temperatures, Freon wont do the job. Liquid air, methane, ethylene, or ammonia are often used as the refrigerant in much the same way Freon has been used in an air conditioner. 

The reasons for the three grades are very practical. For the first two, refinery and chemical, that s the way they re made. Refinery grade propylene streams are generally by-products of a refinery s cat cracker, and the propane/propylene ration is determined by the way the cat cracker is run to make gasoline, not propylene. Chemical grade propylene is usually produced in a naphtha or gas oil cracker. The ratio of propylene and propane is about 92 8 over most of the operating conditions. 

The production of ethylene by gas crackers, mostly from C2, C3, and some C4 feeds, amounts to about 40% of the world ethylene capacity. This results in a small coproduction of benzene compared to benzene co-produced in naphtha and gas oil crackers, which account for 60% of the world s ethylene production capacity. A typical overall benzene yield from ethane cracking is on the order of only 0.6% of the ethane feed, and the yield of benzene from propane cracking is on the order of 3% of the propane feed. In contrast, the... 

Moving bed gas adsorbers also have been proposed and used, patterned after moving bed gas oil crackers. In the Hypersorber of... 

However, gas oil is used in refineries to produce diesel transport fuel and has consequently a high value and a product slate too poor to make it an attractive feedstock relative to naphtha. In recent years, many gas oil crackers have been reconfigured to crack lighter feedstock or heavier feedstock such as atmospheric residual fuel (b.p. > 360°C). 

The enhanced fouling rates and metal contamination (from the crude oil) generally makes atmospheric residua unsuitable as a cracker feedstock. However, some crude oils produce a waxy residual of low metal content (often referred to as low sulphur waxy residua, LSWR). Although more expensive than fuel oil, LSWR is considerably cheaper than gas oil and is an attractive feedstock for some gas oil cracker operations. 

Moving bed gas adsorbers also have been proposed and used, patterned after moving bed gas oil crackers. In the Hypersorber of Figure 15.28, flows of gas and solids are countercurrent in a single vessel. After saturation, the solid is stripped with steam and removed at the bottom of the tower, and gas is lifted to cooling and adsorption zones. The control mechanism for solids flow and typical performance for ethylene recovery from cracked gases also are shown with the figure. Partly because of attrition losses and the advent of competitive processes for ethylene recovery, the Hyper-... 

These compounds can be malodorous as in the case of quinoline, or they can have a plecisant odor as does indole. They decompose on heating to give organic bases or ammonia that reduce the acidity of refining catalysts in conversion units such as reformers or crackers, and initiate gum formation in distillates (kerosene, gas oil). 

Significant products from a typical steam cracker are ethylene, propylene, butadiene, and pyrolysis gasoline. Typical wt % yields for butylenes from a steam cracker for different feedstocks are ethane, 0.3 propane, 1.2 50% ethane/50% propane mixture, 0.8 butane, 2.8 hill-range naphtha, 7.3 light gas oil, 4.3. A typical steam cracking plant cracks a mixture of feedstocks that results in butylenes yields of about 1% to 4%. These yields can be increased by almost 50% if cracking severity is lowered to maximize propylene production instead of ethylene. 

The gas oil feed for the conventional cat cracker comes primarily from the atmospheric column, the vacuum tower, and the delayed coker. In addition, a number of refiners blend some atmospheric or vacuum resid into the feedstocks to be processed in the FCC unit. 

Most refineries produce sufficient gas oil to meet the cat crackers demand. However, in those refineries in which the gas oil produced does not meet the cat cracker capacity, it may be economical to supplement feed by purchasing FCC feedstocks or blending some residue. The refinery-produced gas oil and any supplemental FCC feedstocks are generally combined and sent to a surge drum, which provides a steady flow of feed to the charge pumps. This drum can also separate any water or vapor that may be in the feedstocks. 

The teed to the cat cracker in a typical refinery is a blend of gas oils from such operating units as the crude, vacuum, solvent deasphalting, and coker. Some refiners purchase outside FCC feedstocks to keep the FCC feed rate maximized. Other refiners process atmospheric or vacuum residue in their cat crackers. In recent years, the trend has been toward heavier gas oils and residue. Residue is most commonly defined as the fraction of feed that boils above 1,050°F (565 C). Each FCC feed stream has different distillation characteristics. 

One area of cat cracking not fully understood is the proper determination of carbon residue of the feed and how it affects the unit s coke make. Carbon residue is defined as the carbonaceous residue formed after thermal destruction of a sample. Cat crackers are generally limited in coke burn capacity, therefore, the inclusion of residue in the feed produces more coke and forces a reduction in FCC throughput. Conventional gas oil feeds generally have a carbon residue less than 0,5 wt for feeds containing resid, the number can be as high as 15 wt lf. 

The previous chapters explained the operation of a cat cracker. However, the purpose of the FCC unit is to maximize profitability for the refinery. The cat cracker provides the conversion capacity that every refinery needs to survive. All crudes have heavy gas oils and fuel oil unfortunately, the market for these products has disappeared. 

The cat cracker converts less valuable gas oils to more valuable products. A major objective of most FCC units is to maximize the conversion of gas oil to gasoline and LPG. The products from the cat cracker are ... 

Manufacture Made by thermal (high-temperature) cracking in the presence of steam of any available low-cost hydrocarbon such as ethane and propane, naphthas (C5-C10), and so-called gas oils (C10-C30). Many other organic compounds are produced during the cracking step, depending on the starting material fed to the reactor (cracker). CH3 CH3 CH2=CH2-PH2... 

Table El4.1 A shows various feeds and the corresponding product distribution for a thermal cracker that produces olefins. The possible feeds include ethane, propane, debutanized natural gasoline (DNG), and gas oil, some of which may be fed simultaneously. Based on plant data, eight products are produced in varying proportions according to the following matrix. The capacity to run gas feeds through the cracker is 200,000 lb/stream hour (total flow based on an average mixture). Ethane uses the equivalent of 1.1 lb of capacity per pound of ethane propane 0.9 lb gas oil 0.9 lb/lb and DNG 1.0.

Cracking large hydrocarbons usually results in olefins, molecules with double bonds. Thats why the refinery cat crackers and thermal crackers are sources of ethylene and propylene. But the largest source is olefin plants where ethylene and propylene are the primary products of cracking one or more of the following ethane, propane, butane, naphtha, or gas oil. The choice of feedstock depends both on the olefins plant design and the market price of the feeds. 

A typical C4 hydrocarbon stream coming from a gas oil or naphtha cracker, like that shown in the last chapter in Figure 5-4, might have the following composition ... 

The selection of steam cracker feedstock is mainly driven by market demand as different feedstock qualities produce different olefins yields. One of the commonly used feed quality assessment methods in practice is the Bureau of Mines Correlation Index (BMCI) (Gonzalo et al., 2004). This index is a function of average boiling point and specific gravity of a particular feedstock. The steam cracker feed quality improves with a decrease in the BMCI value. For instance, vacuum gas oil (VGO) has a high value of BMCI and, therefore, is not an attractive steam cracker feed. The commonly used feedstocks in industry are naphtha and gas oil. 

All feeds require an optimized catalyst for the optimal conversion to lighter and more valuable products. This insight has always concerned FCC professionals. Even with vacuum gas oil as feed the optimization problem was evident. Wear and Mott used a MAT reactor to optimize the zeolite to matrix surface area ratio (ZSA/MSA) for a vacuum gas oil catalyst [4]. The naphtha yield increased with increasing ZSA/ MSA ratio, while the coke and dry gas yields decreased. This investigation showed that the optimization of the catalyst indeed was necessary and was very profitable even when vacuum gas oil was used as feed to the catalytic cracker. 

In a typical fluid catalytic cracker, catalyst particles are continuously circulated from one portion of the operation to another. Figure 9 shows a schematic flow diagram of a typical unit W. Hot gas oil feed (500 -700°F) is mixed with 1250 F catalyst at the base of the riser in which the oil and catalyst residence times (from a few seconds to 1 min.) and the ratio of catalyst to the amount of oil is controlled to obtain the desired level of conversion for the product slate demand. The products are then removed from the separator while the catalyst drops back into the stripper. In the stripper adsorbed liquid hydrocarbons are steam stripped from the catalyst particles before the catalyst particles are transferred to the regenerator. 

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