Techniques for Octane Number Enhancement in FCC Gasoline

摘要

Fluid catalyst cracking (FCC) is a pivotal process in modern refineries to convert heavier hydrocarbon feedstocks such as vacuum gas oil (VGO) into FCC gasoline, which contributes about 50% to regular gasoline as a base feedstock. Although the sulfur contents in the feedstocks of FCC gets higher with increase in density of crude oils refined in Japan, the sulfur limits in gasoline have been regulated under 10 ppm since 2005 from the environmental point of view[l]. It has therefore become much more important to control sulfur content in FCC gasoline. The deep hydrosulfurization of FCC gasoline is the most important techniques to meet the regulation, but the issue is the decrease of octane number of FCC gasoline. Therefore, it is also important to enhance the octane number of FCC gasoline to meet the regulation. In this research, we examined the techniques for octane number enhancement in FCC gasoline and an example of commercial operation with one of the techniques using a developed catalyst.