Heavy hydrocarbon pyrolysis systems

In addition to the summary and correlations described here, important experimental information and literature exists for pyrolysis of hydrocarbon systems. The review of Poutsma (18) is quite extensive and should be consulted for the chemistry related to heavy hydrocarbon systems. 

Detailed kinetic schemes also consist of several hundreds of species involved in thousands of reactions. Once efficient tools for handling the correspondingly large numerical systems are available, the extension of existing kinetic models to handle heavier and new species becomes quite a viable task. The definition of the core mechanism always remains the most difficult and fundamental step. Thus, the interactions of small unsaturated species with stable radicals are critical for the proper characterization of conversion and selectivity in pyrolysis processes. Parallel to this, the classification of the different primary reactions involved in the scheme, the definition of their intrinsic kinetic parameters, the automatic generation of the detailed primary reactions and the proper simplification rules are the important steps in the successive extension of the core mechanism. These assumptions are more relevant when the interest lies in the pyrolysis of hydrocarbon mixtures, such as naphtha, gasoil and heavy residue, where a huge number of isomers are involved as reactant, intermediate and final products. Proper rules for feedstock characterizations are then required for a detailed kinetic analysis. 

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