Effects of Design and Operating Conditions on Product Yields in a Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Riser Reactor

摘要

The processing of heavier feed oil into lighter molecular weight products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and olefins, utilizes a fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) process that includes complex multiphase reacting flow phenomena. The performance of this refining process depends on both design and operating conditions of an FCC riser reactor. This paper summarizes the effects of a number of these parameters, which include inlet temperature, catalyst-to-oil ratio, riser geometry, and feed injection angle. The risers simulated were all commercial scale, vertical, cylindrical reactors with a variety of diameters and aspect ratios. Recent work has resulted in a three-phase, lumped integral kinetic cracking computer code, ICRKFLO. Using this code, an investigation was performed to determine the trends in riser performance as a function of these parameters. Optimum operating conditions were identified for the production of the products of interest. These results show that simulation provides the refining industry with an effective method for adjusting selectivity in product yield distributions and tool that may be used to improve the performance of these reactors.