School of Chemical Engineering

Petrochemical Engineering

Tutorial 2 CATALYTIC CRACKING

Mass Balance on Catalytic Cracking Reactor

A feed of 50,000 BPD (Barrels per Day) of AGO (Atmospheric Gas Oil) (650 -
850F) having an API of 24 and a sulphur content of 0.2 wt%, is mixed with
another feed of 15,000 BPD of VGO (Vacuum Gas Oil) (850 - 1050F) that has
an API of 15 and a sulphur content of 0.35 wt%. They are used as a feed to FCC
unit. Use the FCC correlations (Table 1) to find the material balance around the
reactor unit. Assume a conversion of 75 LV%. Figure 1 shows the FCC unit input
and output streams.

Products
Steam
Gases
C3/C3=
Regenerated C4/iC 4/C4=
Catalyst Gasoline
LCO

Spent
Catalyst

Atmospheric Gas Oil (AGO)

Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO)
Steam
Energy Balance on Catalytic Cracker-Regenerator

Find the catalyst circulation rate for the FCC unit used in Q1 by carrying out a
heat balance around the regenerator. A sketch of the stream flows and
temperatures around the regenerator is presented in Figure 2 below:

Data:

Heat of combustion of coke, HC = -0.393 x 106 kJ.kmol-1,

Cp,cat = 1.11 kJ.kg-1.K-1

Cp,air = 29.6 kJ.kmol-1.K-1, Cp,N2 = 32.6 kJ.kmol-1.K-1, Cp,CO2 = 46.9 kJ.kmol-1.K-1,

Cp,coke = 21.1 kJ.kmol-1.K-1.

mN2 + mCO2
TReg = 700oC

mcat + mcoke
Tscat = TR = 520 oC

Regenerator

mcat, TReg = 690 oC

mair
Tair = 200 oC