Petrochemical Processing hydrocracking

Properly speaking, steam cracking is not a refining process. A key petrochemical process, it has the purpose of producing ethylene, propylene, butadiene, butenes and aromatics (BTX) mainly from light fractions of crude oil (LPG, naphthas), but also from heavy fractions hydrotreated or not (paraffinic vacuum distillates, residue from hydrocracking HOC). 

In a number of petrochemical processes, a gas (hydrogen) is present as reactant. In hydrodesulfurization (HDS), hydrocracking (HC), and hydrodenitrogenation (HDN), the reaction products H2S and ammonia, respectively, are known to decrease the catalyst activity, but are partly transferred to the gas phase. Therefore, also these processes profit from reactive stripping. 

Rabo has shown that ALPO s and SAPO s may be used in many chemical and petrochemical processes. They give unique opportunities to be tailored to specific requirements. On the other hand, they have only mild acidity (which could be an Advantage in some cases), they are difficult to synthetize, and they may be more expensive than present commercial zeolites. Therefore they rely on their superior performance to compete with their aluminosilicate cousins. Applications include the removal of nitrogen oxides, cracking of heavy petroleum fractions, octane increase in hydrocracking, various reactions of olefins and aromatics such as oligomerization and xylene isomerization, syngas conversions, and methane activations. Co- and Co-Si-aluminophosphates have been active for this last reaction. 

The major goal of hydroconversion is the cracking of residua with desulfurization, metal removal, denitrogenation, and asphaltene conversion. The residuum hydroconversion process offers production of kerosene and gas oil, and production of feedstocks for hydrocracking, fluid catalytic cracking, and petrochemical applications. 

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