Abstract

This paper describes the mathematical modeling of the physicalchemical phenomena in the coking furnace and coke drum in a
steady-state delayed coking unit based in a lumped kinetic scheme
and vapor-liquid equilibrium conditions. Feedstock and products
composition, and molecular structure are also required. For better
understanding of the coking process and effect of the feedstock
physical-chemical properties on yield and quality parameter of the
products, especially the petroleum coke, molecular characterization of
crude oil and heavy fraction was carried out by MALDI TOF mass
spectrometry. Mathematical algorithm has been developed based on
experimental data and operating conditions from an industrial
delayed coking unit. A good prediction capability of the model and an
accurate industrial unit representation of the industrial unit is
expected. The developed model will be used for monitoring the
industrial process and implementing real time optimization (RTO).
Meanwhile, the acquired knowledge obtained during the model
development has already improved the quality of green coke
produced and the operational procedure of industrial plant.
Keywords: Delayed Coking, Mathematical Modeling, Lumps.
1. Introduction
The increasing competitive market, the frequent changes in prices,
higher demand for oil and petroleum availability, restrictions on
product specifications and operational bottlenecks require quick
responses. The delayed coking is a semi continuous termal cracking
process used in petroleum refineries to upgrade and convert vacuum
residue into liquid and gas products leaving behind a solid
concentrated carbon material, known as petroleum coke (Ellis et. al.,,
1998). However, the delayed coking unit is one of the most difficult
process to operate and control. That is so, because the furnace
supplies thermal energy demanded by the thermal cracking of the
hydrocarbon molecules, while the coke drum provides the residence
time for chemical reactions to continue and accumulation coke
formed. Being highly endothermic, the coking reactions rate drops
dramatically as coke drum temperature decreases. The residue
compositions are much more complicated that of heavy gas oil
fractions. They are much larger and heteroatoms compounds with
sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen groups (Zhou et. al., 2007). The basic
idea of this work is to develop a mathematical model of the reaction
kinetics and conditions of vapor-liquid equilibrium using an industrial
plant as base to determine the parameters of the model in question.
5#$
2. Mathematical Modeling
2.1 Mass Balance Data to Reconciliation
Measured process data inevitably contain some inaccurate
information, since measurements are obtained with uncertainties. The

problem consists in obtaining more accurate estimates for process

variable measurements, satisfying the mass and energy conservation
laws, according to the least square objective function:
T
F . O.=( X ^
X ) . W 1 . ( X ^
X)
Mn.
(1)
Subject to the constraints:
X 1 = X 2+ X 3 + X 4 + X 5 + X 6 ( X 0 )

(2)

where X is a vector of measurements for n process variables,

.(^
X)

is

a vector of estimates for the n process variables and W is a weight

matrix of the measurements.