FIXED BED HYDROPROCESSING METHODS AND SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR UPGRADING AN EXISTING FIXED BED SYSTEM

摘要

A fixed bed hydroprocessing system, and also a method for upgrading a pre-existing fixed bed hydroprocessing system, involves preliminarily upgrading aheavy oil feedstock in one or more slurry phase reactors using a colloidal ormolecular catalyst and then further hydroprocessing the upgraded feedstockwithin one or more fixed bed reactors using a porous supported catalyst. Thecolloidal or molecular catalyst is formed by intimately mixing a catalystprecursor composition into a heavy oil feedstock and raising the temperatureof the feedstock to above the decomposition temperature of the precursorcomposition to form the colloidal or molecular catalyst in situ. Asphaltene orother hydrocarbon molecules otherwise too large to diffuse into the pores ofthe fixed bed catalyst can be upgraded by the colloidal or molecular catalyst.One or more slurry phase reactors may be built and positioned upstream fromone or more fixed bed reactors of a pre-existing fixed bed system and/orconverted from one or more pre-existing fixed bed reactors.