PTQ Q2 2023 Issue

A Charles Brandl, Senior Director, Customer Marketing, Honeywell UOP, charles.brandl@honeywell.com Optimal unit configurations for reducing or even eliminating low-value refinery streams like HSFO and LSFO are deter - mined on a case-by-case basis, as this mainly depends on the existing assets/refinery configuration, feed sources, total investment, bankability, and price sets. That said, several optimal configurations can be considered, all of which can be classified into two categories: hydrogen addition and car - bon rejection-based configurations. Conventionally, carbon rejection configurations (SDA + (R)FCC or DCU + (R)FCC)) were typically deemed more economically viable in regions with high hydrogen prices and/or large gasoline markets. However, considering the, energy transition, which involves the switch from fuels to maximum petrochemi - cals, decarbonisation and the hydrogen economy, hydrogen addition configurations typically are the preferred choice. This does not mean carbon rejection schemes can no longer be the right solution. For example, when hydrotreating the FCC feed, adding UOP’s latest generation high-propylene FCC (referred to as Flexible Propylene FCC) in addition to extracting aromatics from the heavy naphtha, and reducing the FCC carbon footprint, a lot of the investment criteria in today’s environment can still be met. For hydrogen addition refinery configurations, several hydrogen addition schemes have been developed. The ones with the highest economic performance expressed as IRR and NPV are typically a combination of SDA or Uniflex (UOP’s slurry hydrocracking technology) + hydrocracking + integrated olefins suite (IOS) + steam cracker and Oleflex (UOP’s propane dehydrogenation [PDH] technology). UOP’s proprietary IOS is a collection of technologies to effi - ciently integrate and optimise performance of petrochemi - cal complexes in three ways:  Improve feed quality to steam crackers and catalytic reforming units to maximise the yield of high-value products  Process propane in a PDH unit instead of a steam cracker to significantly boost olefin yields  Increase, decrease, or eliminate most by-products to match the operator’s business strategies. Q Changes in feedstocks processed through hydrotreat- ing and hydrocracking reactors may sometimes lead to lower efficiency, such as thermal maldistribution prob - lems and reduced cycle length. Can you report any recent cases, such as distillate hydrotreaters challenged with meeting T95 diesel specifications, where conversion problems were resolved that can be duplicated with other hydrotreating units facing similar challenges? A Arun Arora, arun.arora@lummustech.com, Daniel Gillis, Daniel.gillis@lummustech.com, Theo Maesen, tmae- sen@chevron.com, Chevron Lummus Global There are multiple units where hydrocrackers were designed for two years and are now achieving three years or higher in some instances, especially the second stage (of HCR). This has been made possible by novel catalysts regularly extending hydrotreating and cracking cycles, lowering the

start-of-run (SOR) temperature without changing the foul - ing rate. With some tailoring, catalyst innovations can be extended to other units. In addition to catalyst systems, CLG’s latest reactor internals and new ISOCatch inlet bas - kets can be helpful in extending life where a high axial tem - perature gradient is an issue. Other processing schemes have been employed, which not only enhanced catalyst life but also offered to produce high-value products such as premium LBO. A Fu-Ming Lee, Maw-Tien Lee, Mark Zih-Yao Shen, Chi-Yao Chen, and Yin-Hsien Chen, and Ricky Hsu, International Innotech, Inc., ricky_hsu@msn.com Cycle lengths of a hydrotreater or hydrocracker are limited by pressure drop of the fixed bed reactor and deactivation of the catalyst. Solid particles in the liquid streams to the reactor, which plug the catalyst bed and the pore opening of the catalyst active sites, are the main cause of ending the reactor operating cycle. Currently, solid particles are removed from liquid streams mainly by filtration. Conventional filter cartridges and/or fil - tering screens are normally used to remove only large solid particles (larger than 25-50 µ m) from process streams. To remove additional particles from the liquid stream and pro - vide a better fluid distribution, macropore solids are also packed into the top of the reactor. In recent years, reticu - lated top bed materials have been packed into the top of the reactor to improve solid particle removal and fluid dis - tribution into the catalyst bed. Depending upon the types of reticulated top bed materials, additional solid particles with sizes larger than 1.0 µ m are removed from the liquid stream before reaching the active catalyst bed.

Cycle lengths of a hydrotreater or hydrocracker are limited by pressure drop of the fixed bed reactor and deactivation of the catalyst

Conventional methods are designed to remove micron- size (10-6 µ m) solid particles only and are incapable of removing ultra-small nanometer (10-9 nm) particles from the process streams. For example, the reticulated top bed technology can only remove solid particles from 1 to 1,500 µ m in size. Unremoved ultra-small particles in the liquid stream tend to plug the pore opening of the catalyst active sites in the downstream reactor. A magnetically induced filter (Universal Filter), developed and commercialised by ShinChuang Technology, is capable of removing essentially all types of solid particles of any size (down to 7 nm or less) with substantially reduced costs and simpler operations. The impact of nanometer particle removal from liquid streams to the reactor is enormous since it protects (or minimises) catalyst active pore openings from plugging, thereby greatly prolonging the catalyst life.

PTQ Q2 2023