refining india 2022
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Commercial n ozzle SprayMax nozzle
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Figure 6a (left) Damaged feed nozzles (manufactured by licensor) of HPCL refinery FCC Unit 3 taken out during October 2019 shutdown 6b (right) SprayMax nozzles installed in HPCL refinery FCC Unit 3 in October 2019
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cated within a month and delivered to the refinery in time for installation and unit start-up. Figure 5 shows the comparison of prod- uct yields and overall conversion before and after the turnaround of the FCC unit. SprayMax nozzles provided around 0.8% higher conversion with an increase of 0.4 wt% in LPG yield, an increase of 0.9 wt% in gasoline yield, and a decrease of 0.6 wt% in dry gas yield than the previous commercial nozzles. HPCL refinery FCC Unit 3 A third FCC unit at an HPCL refinery has a feed capacity of 0.97 MMTPA. During
a turnaround in October 2019, it was observed that the licensor-provided feed nozzles were severely eroded, as shown in Figure 6a. These nozzles were also replaced by SprayMax nozzles during the turnaround without any modifications in the riser or feed circuit. Figure 7 shows the comparison of prod- uct yields and overall conversion before and after the turnaround of FCC Unit 3 under identical operating conditions. SprayMax nozzles provided around 0.5% higher conversion with an increase of 0.9 wt% in LPG yield and a decrease of 0.3 wt% in dry gas yield than the previous commercial nozzles.
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Figure 7 Comparison of product yield pattern and conversion for HPCL refinery FCC Unit 3
Conclusion HPGRDC has successfully developed and commercialised a cost-effective FCC feed injection nozzle, SprayMax, with improved operational reliability and performance. For the first time in India, FCC feed noz- zles were designed entirely in-house, fabricated, and successfully commer- cialised in HPCL refineries. The improved performance of these nozzles was veri-
fied by analysing the data obtained from test runs conducted before and after the installation of SprayMax nozzles. The noz- zles have helped increase unit conversion by about 0.5-1.2 wt% with an increase in LPG and gasoline yields and a decrease in dry gas yield in all the units.
Contact: pramodkumar@hpcl.in
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