Modeling of three-phase radial flow reactor for diesel hydrotreating

Abstract

• Mixing cell network model presented for industrial-scale three-phase Radial Flow Reactor for diesel hydrodesulfurization. • 2D MCN model was developed for Radial Flow Reactor (RFR) with one and five distributors to predict the product quality and bed temperature profiles. • Reactions like hydrodesulphurization (HDS), Hydrodearomatisation (HDA), and olefins saturation are taken into consideration. A mathematical model for a novel industrial-scale three-phase catalytic Radial Flow Reactor (RFR) has been developed using a two-dimensional mixing cell network (MCN) model. RFR is predominantly used for gaseous phase reactions in the petroleum refining industry. This work discusses the capabilities of three-phase RFR for diesel hydrodesulfurization. The reactions considered for the model development of diesel hydrodesulfurization are hydrodesulfurization, hydrodearomatisation, and olefins saturation. Apart from the well-known advantage of RFR, such as pressure drop, the analysis revealed other benefits such as better product quality, reduced H 2 S inhibition, no requirement of quench, high WABT. Simulations for RFR were performed for different gas distributors and results show that distributor design impacts the performance of reactor.