Effects of Temperature and Catalyst to Oil Weight Ratio on the Catalytic Conversion of Heavy Oil to Propylene Using ZSM-5 and USY Catalysts

Abstract

It is useful for practical operation to study the rules of production of propylene by the catalytic conversion of heavy oil in FCC (fluid catalytic cracking). The effects of temperature and C/O ratio (catalyst to oil weight ratio) on the distribution of the product and the yield of propylene were investigated on a micro reactor unit with two model catalysts, namely ZSM-5/Al 2O 3 and USY/Al 2O 3, and Fushun vacuum gas oil (VGO) was used as the feedstock. The conversion of heavy oil over ZSM-5 catalyst can be comparable to that of USY catalyst at high temperature and high C/O ratio. The rate of conversion of heavy oil using the ZSM-5 equilibrium catalyst is lower compared with the USY equilibrium catalyst under the general FCC conditions and this can be attributed to the poor steam ability of the ZSM-5 equilibrium catalyst. The difference in pore topologies of USY and ZSM-5 is the reason why the principal products for the above two catalysts is different, namely gasoline and liquid petroleum gas (LPG), repspectively. So the LPG selectivity, especially the propylene selectivity, may decline if USY is added into the FCC catalyst for maximizing the production of propylene. Increasing the C/O ratio is the most economical method for the increase of LPG yield than the increase of the temperature of the two model catalysts, because the loss of light oil is less in the former case. There is an inverse correlation between HTC (hydrogen transfer coefficient) and the yield of propylene, and restricting the hydrogen transfer reaction is the more important measure in increasing the yield of propylene of the ZSM-5 catalyst. The ethylene yield of ZSM-5/Al 2O 3 is higher, but the gaseous side products with low value are not enhanced when ZSM-5 catalyst is used. Moreover, for LPG and the end products, dry gas and coke, their ranges of reaction conditions to which their yields are dependent are different, and that of end products is more severe than that of LPG. So it is clear that maximizing LPG and propylene and restricting dry gas and coke can be both achieved via increasing the severity of reaction conditions among the range of reaction conditions which LPG yield is sensitive to.