What is the hydrocracking process?

Hydrocracking is a process to convert larger hydrocarbon molecules into smaller molecules under high hydrogen pressure and elevated temperature. It is commonly applied to upgrade the heavier fractions of the crude oils to produce higher value transportation fuels.

What do you mean by catalytic reforming?

Catalytic reforming is a process used to convert low-octane naphthas into high-octane gasoline blending components called reformates. Reforming is the total effect of several reactions that occur simultaneously including cracking, polymerization, dehydrogenation, and isomerization.

What is the difference between hydrocracking and catalytic cracking?

The basis of catalytic cracking is carbon rejection, while hydrocracking is a hydrogen addition process. Catalyst cracking uses an acid catalyst, while hydrocracking uses a metal catalyst on acid support. Another differnce is that catalyst cracking is an endothermic process while hydrocracking is an exothermic process.

What is hydrocracking catalyst?

Hydrocracking is a catalytic chemical process used in petroleum refineries for converting the high-boiling hydrocarbons in petroleum to low-boiling products such as gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel and diesel oil. Cracking of high-boiling hydrocarbons found in crude oil into lower-boiling hydrocarbons.

What is the purpose of hydrocracking?

Hydrocracking is usually performed on heavy gas oils and residues, to remove feed contaminants (nitrogen, sulfur, metals) and to convert them into lighter fractions including diesel gasoils.

Why is hydrocracking more effective than FCC?

In a refinery, the hydrocracker upgrades VGO through cracking while injecting hydrogen. This yields a high volume of high-quality diesel and kerosene product. This is in contrast to the FCC, which uses the same feed (VGO) but produces more and better-quality gasoline.

Is catalytic reforming exothermic or endothermic?

Catalytic steam reforming reaction produces carbon monoxide and hydrogen from methane and water. This reaction is a large endothermic reaction. Industrial hydrogen production is mainly produced by this reaction. This reaction is also used for hydrogen, which is a feedstock of methanol [95].

What is catalyst in oil and gas?

Petroleum refining catalysts play a key role as most of the processes beyond the crude unit are catalytic. The catalyst provides a surface for reactants to adsorb onto and from which products to desorb from. The role of the catalyst is to lower the activation energy of a reaction by providing a reaction pathway.

Why hydrogen is used in hydrocracking?

use in petroleum refining automobile and jet fuel increased, hydrocracking was applied to petroleum refining. This process employs hydrogen gas to improve the hydrogen-carbon ratio in the cracked molecules and to arrive at a broader range of end products, such as gasoline, kerosene (used in jet fuel), and diesel fuel.

What is the need of hydrocracking?

A hydrocracking unit, or hydrocracker, takes gas oil, which is heavier and has a higher boiling range than distillate fuel oil, and cracks the heavy molecules into distillate and gasoline in the presence of hydrogen and a catalyst. …

What is catalytic reforming and isomerization?

Catalytic reforming is the process of transforming C7–C10 hydrocarbons with low octane numbers to aromatics and iso-paraffins which have high octane numbers. It is a highly endothermic process requiring large amounts of energy. Isomerization is a mildly exothermic reaction and leads to the increase of an octane number.

What is the main purpose of reforming?

A7: The purpose of Reforming process is to produce high octane number reformate reformate, which is a main component for motor fuel, aviation gasoline blending or aromatic rich feedstock. Hydrogen rich gas hydrogen gas Due to the nature of the reactions, reforming process produces LPG.

What is the mechanism for hydrocracking of n-heptane?

Figure 10.15 outlines the mechanism for the hydrocracking of n -heptane. Dehydrogenation over a metal at a metal site generates 2-heptane, which is converted into a carbenium ion (also known as a carbonium ion or carbocation) via proton addition at protic acid sites.

What is Aromatic Naphthene *h0il?

AROMATIC NAPHTHENE *H-0IL is a commercial processed for resid hydrocracking/resid desulfurisation, licensed by Hydrocarbon Research Inc. (USA). HYDROCRACKING OF LARGE MOLECULES Hydrocracking of large hydrocarbon molecules into smaller molecules occurs in nearly all processes carried out in the presence of excess hydrogen.

What are the advantages of hydhydrocracking?

Hydrocracking is an extremely versatile process that can be utilized in many different ways, and one of the advantages of hydrocracking is its ability to break down high-boiling aromatic stocks produced by catalytic cracking or coking. To take full advantage of hydrocracking, the process must be integrated in the refinery with other process units.

What is the history of hydrocracking?

In the 1950s, the first hydrotreaters were used to remove sulfur from feeds to catalytic reformers. In the 1960s, the first hydrocrackers were built to convert gas oil into naphtha. Table 3. Feeds and Products for Hydroprocessing Units process feeds that contain high concentrations carbon-forming compounds. vacuum gas oil, and residue.

Two-stage hydrocracking process. vacuum gas oils into middle distillate and allows for high selectivity. The conversion is typically around 50-60%. The unconverted material is low in sulfur, nitrogen, and other impurities and is used as either feed for fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCU) or a fuel oil blending component.

What is the life of a hydrocracker catalyst?

CATALYST FOULING RATE The design of a hydrocracker unit is based on a specified conversion rate of the feed and a specified catalyst life, usually 2-3 years between catalyst regeneration.

What are the different modes of operation of a hydrocracker?

PROCESS CONFIGURATION Hydrocracker units can be operated in the following possible modes: single-stage (once-through-mode) operation, single-stage operation with partial or total recycling, and two-stage operation. These operation modes are shown in Figures 3-1 and 3-2.

What are the typical operating conditions of reSID hydrocracker units?

The typical operating conditions of resid hydrocracker units are shown in Table 3-9, and yields and product qualities are shown in Tables 3-10 to 3-12. The liquid hourly space velocity is calculated based on the flow volume of the liquid feed at the reactor operating conditions divided by the volume of the catalyst up to the fluidized bed height.