Catalyst Testing in a Continuously Operated Fluid Catalytic Cracking Pilot Plant

Abstract

A cost-effective and risk-minimizing way to test out new plant configurations for refinery operators is the pretesting of catalysts and temperature changes in pilot plants, which are essential since refineries have to be adapted to climate change regulations in the upcoming decades. In this work, a fluid catalytic cracking pilot plant was used to test out three different catalysts at two different riser temperatures each. It was shown that all tests were conducted without any hardware changes beside the catalysts and that the obtained results corresponded to the advertised benefits of each catalyst according to the manufacturer. While the heavy residue catalyst produced more gasoline making it interesting for a fuel-focused refinery, the two gas boosting catalysts promoted different compounds of the gaseous products. These gaseous products can then be used for synthesizing polymers and other high-value products.