Petroleum Technology

Catalytic Cracking
 most important and widely used refinery process for
converting heavy oils into more valuable gasoline
and lighter products, with 10.6MMBPD (over 1
million tons/day) of oil processed in the world.
 Originally cracking was accomplished thermally but
the catalytic process has almost completely replaced
thermal cracking because more gasoline having a
higher octane and less heavy fuel oils and light gases
are produced.
 The light gases produced by catalytic cracking contain
more olefins than those produced by thermal
cracking
 The cracking process produces carbon (coke) which
remains on the catalyst particle and rapidly lowers its
activity.
 To maintain the catalyst activity at a useful level, it is
necessary to regenerate the catalyst by burning off this
coke with air. As a result, the catalyst is continuously
moved from reactor to regenerator and back to reactor.
 The cracking reaction is endothermic and the
regeneration reaction exothermic.
 Average riser reactor temperatures are in the range 900
to 1000°F (480–540°C), with oil feed temperatures from
500 to 800°F (260–425°C) and regenerator exit
temperatures for catalyst from 1200 to 1500°F (650–
815°C).
 The catalytic-cracking processes in use today can all
be classified as either moving-bed or fluidized-bed
units.
 The Thermafor catalytic cracking process (TCC) is
representative of the moving-bed units and the fluid
catalytic cracker (FCC) of the fluidized-bed units.
 The FCC units can be classified as either bed or riser
(transfer line) cracking units depending upon where
the major fraction of the cracking reaction occurs.
 The process flows of both types of processes are
similar.
 FLUIDIZED-BED CATALYTIC CRACKING
 The FCC process employs a catalyst in the form of very
fine particles [average particle size about 70 micrometers
(microns)] which behave as a fluid when aerated with a
vapor.
 The fluidized catalyst is circulated continuously between
the reaction zone and the regeneration zone - acts as a
vehicle to transfer heat from the regenerator to the oil
feed and reactor.
 Two basic types of FCC units in use today are the ‘‘side-
by-side’’ type, where the reactor and regenerator are
separate vessels adjacent to each other, and the
Orthoflow, or stacked type, where the reactor is
mounted on top of the regenerator
Typical FCC unit configurations