Hydroprocessing Reactor Internals

Figure 13.17 Hydroprocessing reactor internals. (—) Axial delta-r. (—) Radial delta-T. (Source Alvarez et al. [65]. Reproduced with permission of American Chemical Society.)...

FIGURE 7.6 Hydroprocessing reactor internals. (—) Axial delta-r and ( ) radial delta-r. 

Jacobs, G.E. Milliken, A.S. Evaluating liquid distributors in hydroprocessing reactors. Hydrocarbon Processing, International Edition 2000, 79, 75. Jiang, Y. Khadilkar, M.R. Al-Dahhan, M.H. Dudukovic, M.P. Two-phase flow distribution in 2D trickle-bed reactors. Chem. Eng. Sci. 1999, 54, 2409. 

Alvarez A, Ramirez S, Ancheyta J, Rodriguez LM. Key role of reactor internals in hydroprocessing of oil fractions. Energy Fuels 2007t21 1731-1740. 

Potential applications of internally finned monoliths as elements in gas-liquid-solid reac> tors may be found in the area of hydroprocessing of petroleum, which is now dominated by the application of trickle-bed reactors and which represents a large-volume business. Incentives for countercurrent operation in this field have already been discussed in Section II. 

In residue hydroprocessing units, heat release is high, but some licensors avoid using intra-reactor quench because residue feeds often form lumps of coked-bonded catalyst in fixed-bed units. In reactors with complex internals, such lumps are very hard to remove during a catalyst change-out. Therefore, fixed-bed residue units often comprise three or more 1-bed reactors in series with quench in between. In many cases, the first reactor is guard bed filled with one or catalysts designed to remove metals. 

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