CFD modeling of the coke combustion in an industrial FCC regenerator

摘要

Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is one of the most important conversion processes used in refineries all over the world. It is used for the conversion of heavy oil feed with high boiling temperature to produce gasoline, diesel, propylene and other valuable products. Coke deposits on the catalyst during the catalytic conversion and deactivates it, therefore catalyst is continuously regenerated in the FCC process. The regeneration step is essential as it directly impacts the products yields. The coke combustion also generates NOx and SOx emissions which levels are highly influenced by the bed hydrodynamics, the operation parameters and the reactor configuration, and are important to quantify. For all these reasons, the understanding of the regenerator hydrodynamic and kinetic is essential.