Hydrotreating petroleum refining

Johns, W. F., Clausen, G., Nongbri, G., and Kaufman, H., Texaco T-STAR Process for Ebullated Bed Hydrotreating/Hydrocracking, paper presented at the 1993 National Petroleum Refiners Association Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX (1993)... 

Brossard, D.N. (1997) Chevron RDS/ VRDS hydrotreating-transportation fuels from the bottom of the barrel, in Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes, 2nd edn (ed. R.A. Myers), McGraw-Hill, pp. 8.3-8.26... 

In a trickle bed reactor the gas and liquid flow (trickle) concurrently downward over a packed bed of catalyst particles. Industrial trickle beds are typically 3 to 6 m deep and up to 3 m in diameter and are filled with catalyst particles ranging irom to in. in diameter. The pores of the catalyst are filled with liquid. In petroleum refining, pressures of 34 to 100 atm and temperatures of 350 to 425°C are not uncommon. A pilot-plant trickle bed reactor might be about 1 m deep and 4 cm in diameter. Trickle beds are used in such processes as the hydrodesulfurization of heavy oil stocks, the hydrotreating of lubricating oils, and reactions such as the production of butynediol from acetylene and aqueous formaldehyde over a copper acetylide catalyst. It is on this latter type of reaction,... 

R.A. Meyers, Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1986. M.L. Occelli and R. Chianelli, Hydrotreating Technology for Pollution Control Catalysts, Catalysis, and Processes. Marcel Dekker, New York,1996 J.G. Speight, The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum. M. Dekker, New York, 1999. 

Trickle-bed reactors are widely used in hydrotreating processes, i.e., hydrodesulfurization of gasoline and diesel fuel, in petroleum refining, chemical, petrochemical, and biochemical processes. The knowledge of hydrodynamic parameters is vital in the design of a TBR because the conversion of reactants, reaction yield, and selectivity depend not only on reaction kinetics, operating pressure, and temperature, but also on the hydrodynamics of the reactor. Special care is also required to prevent flow maldistribution, which can cause incomplete catalyst wetting in some parts... 

Petroleum refining has entered a significant transition period as the industry moves into the 21st century. Refinery operations have evolved to include a range of next-generation processes (that include hydrotreating of heavy oils and residua) as the demand for transportation fuels and fuel oil has shown a steady growth. 

Exothermic (Hydrotreating, Hydrocracking, Alkylation). Many of the petroleum refining reactions are exothermic. Hydrocracking is very exothermic... 

Disulfides and polysulfides are useful for sulfiding hydrotreating catalysts, used in petroleum refining to convert metal oxides to the preferred metal sulfides. Hydrotreating is an essential process in the refining of petroleum. It removes heteroatoms, nitrogen, and sulfur from crude oil and its fractions, formulated into gasoline and diesel (Table 5). 

D. C. McCulloch, Catalytic hydrotreating in petroleum refining. In B. E. Leach, editor, Applied. Industrial Catalysis, volume one, pages 69-121. Academic Press, New York, 1983. 

Water gas is used extensively in the industry for the manufacture of ammonia, methanol, hydrogen (for hydrotreating, hydrocracking of petroleum fractions and other hydrogenations in the petroleum refining and petrochemical industry), hydrocarbons (by the Fischer-Tropsch process) and metals (by the reduction of the oxide ore). 

During the next 20-30 years, the evolution future of petroleum refining and the current refinery layout will be primarily on process modification with some new innovations coming on-stream. The industry will move predictably on to (1) deep conversion of heavy feedstocks, (2) higher hydrocracking and hydrotreating capacity, and (3) more efficient processes. 

D. C. McCulloch, Catalytic Hydrotreating in Petroleum Refining, Academic Press, New York, 1983. 

Trickle-bed reactors are mainly used in key petroleum refining applications such as hydrocracking, hydrodesulfurization, and hydroisomerization. The process involves the combination of hydrogenation/hydrotreating and cracking of... 

Catalytic hydrotreating (HDT) is a mature technology used in the petroleum refining industry for the upgrading of hydrocarbon streams for the last 60 years. For conventional distillate... 

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