A twin-fluid injector for FCC feed injection

Abstract

In Fluidized Bed Catalytic Cracking (FCC) process, hydrocarbon feed undergoes vapour phase cracking in presence of hot regenerated catalyst to produce valuable products like LPG, Gasoline and Diesel. FCC feed injection system is most critical hardware component of FCC unit in order to get desired product yield by minimizing the undesirable dry gas and coke yield. Typically, twin-fluid nozzles (hydrocarbon and stream) are used to atomize the feed. In the present study, a twin-fluid injector, with an internal impactor to minimize the droplet size and velocity, is designed, developed and characterized. The performance of the feeding injector was evaluated using water and air as operating fluids and the droplet size and velocity were measured 150 mm downstream of the injector tip using a PDPA system for different water and air flow rates. The average droplet size (D32) showed an increase while the droplet velocity remained almost constant with the increase in the liquid flow rate for a given flow rate of air, consistent with the increase in droplet size with decreasing air-liquid ratio for twin–fluid atomizers. But, for a given liquid flow rate, the droplet SMD decreased and the droplet velocity increased with increasing airflow rate, which can be attributed to the increase in overall kinetic energy due to the increase in air flow rate. The flow rate of liquid was seen to be independent of air flow rate unlike conventional twin-fluid atomizers. The droplet size was found to be a function of ALR and the local volume flux of the droplets was found to be a function of the liquid flow rate.