Investigation of the liquid recycle in the reactor cascade of an industrial scale ebullated bed hydrocracking unit

One of the commercial means to convert heavy oil residue is hydrocracking in an ebullated bed. The ebullated bed reactor includes a complex gas–liquid–solid backmixed system which attracts the attention of many scientists and research groups. This work is aimed at the calculation of the internal recycle flow rate and understanding its effect on other parameters of the ebullated bed. Measured data were collected from an industrial scale residual hydrocracking unit consisting of a cascade of three ebullated bed reactors. A simplified block model of the ebullated bed reactors was created in Aspen Plus and fed with measured data. For reaction yield calculation, a lumped kinetic model was used. The model was verified by comparing experimental and calculated distillation curves as well as the calculated and measured reactor inlet temperature. Influence of the feed rate on the recycle ratio(recycle to feed flow rate) was estimated. A relation between the recycle flow rate, pump pressure difference and catalyst inventory has been identified. The recycle ratio also affects the temperature gradient along the reactor cascade. Influence of the recycle ratio on the temperature gradient decreased with the cascade member order.

Experimental Study of Integrated Ebullated-bed and Fixed-bed for Hydrotreating Mid-Low Temperature Coal Tar to Clean Fuel

A new hydrotreating technology integrating the ebullated-bed(EB) and the fixed-bed(FB) hydrogenation was proposed to investigate the efficiency for hydrotreating mid- low-temperature coal tar to clean fuel, and multiple tests at the bench scale were carried out. The results showed that the distillates obtained from EB reactors were greatly upgraded and could meet the requirements of FB unit without discarding any tail oil. The naphtha produced from FB reactors could be fed to the catalytic reforming unit, while a high quality diesel was also obtained. The unconverted oil(UCO) could be further hydrocracked to clean fuel. It is found that the removal of impurities from the coal tar oil is related with the molecular aggregation structure and composition of the coal tar. Application of the integrated hydrotreating technology to the hightemperature coal tar processing demonstrated that more than half of heavy components could be effectively upgraded.

Reaction Process of Heavy Hydrocarbons Hydrogenation in Ebullated Bed

The properties and structural changes of unconverted oil(UCO)obtained from ebullated bed hydrogenation at different residue conversion rates were analyzed to clarify the reaction process of heavy components.Meanwhile,the processing routes of UCO,delayed coking,and solvent deasphalting,were investigated.The results showed that with the increase of conversion,the impurity removal rate increased;meanwhile the contents of sulfur and metal in UCO decreased,while the contents of nitrogen and residual carbon increased,and the colloidal stability of UCO became worse.The structural parameters of UCO indicated that the change in molecular structure of heavy oil mainly covered the opening of cycloalkanes ring,hydrogenation saturation of aromatic rings and dealkylation reaction during hydrogenation in the ebullated bed;the aromatic structure was basically unchanged at high conversion,and was mainly due to the ring opening of cycloalkanes and the fracture reaction of alkyl side chains.The coking route of UCO showed that low sulfur petroleum coke with different grades could be prepared by adjusting the conversion in ebullated bed to produce UCOs with different properties.The coke generating coefficient and sulfur transfer coefficient in UCO coking process were higher than those in residue coking.The properties of deasphalted oil(DAO)of UCO were significantly improved and could be used as FCC or hydrocracking feedstock.The DAO yield of UCO feedstock at high conversion was higher,and its sulfur content was lower and CCR value was higher.