Industrial Fluid Catalytic Cracking FCC Units

For industrial fluid cracking units most of the modeling work in the literature is based upon a highly empirical approach that helps in building units and in operating them, but does not elucidate the main features and characteristics of the units in order to help improve the design and control of such units, or to optimize their output. 

A better understanding of the behavior of FCC units can be obtained through mathematical models coupled with industrial verification and cross verification of these models. The mathematical model equations need to be solved for both design and simulation purposes. Most of the models are nonlinear and therefore they require numerical techniques like the ones described in the previous chapters. 

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The work of Elnashaie and co-workers on the bifurcation and instability of industrial fluid catalytic cracking (FCC units) [42-44],... 

A standpipe commonly used in the petroleum industry is the underflow vertical standpipe with slide valve at the lower end. In this case the standpipe generates more head than is required and the excess is used across the slide valve in controlling the solids flow. Such a standpipe is used in the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit to transfer solids from the reactor to the regenerator. 

The two industrial fluid catalytic cracking units that we consider are of type IV with U-bends. The two units vary in their input parameters which lead to different outputs. The following table contains the plant data for the two commercial FCC units under consideration. 

Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) represents the major industrial application of fluidized bed technology. As of 1997, there were over 350 units operating worldwide, processing more than 16 million barrels of feed... 

Chapter 7 is the climax of the book Here the educated student is asked to apply all that he/she has learned thus far to deal with many common practical industrial units. In Chapter 7 we start with a simple illustrative example in Section 7.1 and introduce five important industrial processes, namely fluid catalytic cracking in FCC units in Section 7.2, the UNIPOL process in Section 7.3, industrial steam reformers and methanators in Section 7.4, the production of styrene in Section 7.5, and the production of bioethanol in Section 7.6. 

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