In modern petroleum refineries, the cracking of high molecular weight components is performed with the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process. Unfortunately, the current FCC process has been considered not to be able to directly refine polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (P AHs), which are one of the main components of the heavy crude oils, because of difficulties in activation of aromatic rings in an atmosphere without hydrogen. Therefore, for the efficient utilization of the heavy crude oils, it has been considered necessary to hydrogenate the PAHs with pressurized hydrogen atmosphere so as to convert them into naphthenes before they are supplied to the FCC process.
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