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U
S refineries are facing the (PSRI) is an independent industrial
Grace Davison 2002 Survey
difficult challenges of consortium serving 28 member
reduced demand and low companies, which include:
Cat losses 15
refining margins. Projection for • Oil companies, such as Shell,
Cat circulation 12
future gasoline demand in the US is Transfer line coking 11 ExxonMobil, BP, Total, Chevron,
relatively flat at best, while regula- Coking/slurry fouling 10 ConocoPhillips, Marathon, Sunoco,
tory ethanol requirements will cut Low coke 6 Syncrude, Petrobras
High regenerator temperature 5
into refining supply to the gasoline • Chemical companies, such as
Poor stripping 5
market. This has a direct impact on High corrosion 5 Dow, BASF, SABIC, Sasol
fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit High coke 4 • Technology providers, such as
operation. Main fractionator fouling 4 Shell Global Solutions, UOP, Shaw
Catalyst deactivation 4
In this challenging environment, Stone Webster, KBR, CPFD, Solutia,
Expander vibration 4
improving unit reliability and Excessive afterburn 3 IFP, INEOS, Cristal Global.
reducing both operational and Other 4 PSRI conducts research and test-
maintenance costs are the key focus ing programmes that address the
for refiners. This article introduces Table 1 common concerns of member
a FCC cyclone technology with a companies. These programmes are
proven track record of helping refineries’ needs, both in terms of guided by elected technical advi-
refineries to improve unit reliability performance (catalyst loss) and reli- sors from member companies. One
while reducing operational and ability. Shell Global Solutions has recent PSRI programme studied
maintenance costs developed an innovative cyclone and benchmarked different FCC
technology, which is categorised as cyclone technologies, since cyclone
Conventional cyclones: improved cyclone technology here. erosion and reliability are high-
a weak link in FCC operation lighted as the major concerns of
Two recent industry surveys reveal PSRI cyclone study FCC operation for member compa-
the pervasive problems of cyclones Particulate Solid Research Inc nies in recent surveys. The most
used in FCC operation. Table 1
summarises the survey results by
Grace Davison as presented at its
2002 Dublin FCC conference. The
results indicate that catalyst losses
from cyclones were the number one
problem in FCC operation. The
2008 NPRA survey again revealed
that FCC cyclone reliability is a
major concern for member
companies.
Cyclones are commonly consid-
ered a mature technology in the
industry. As a result, most FCC
technology licensors rely on
vendors to provide cyclones that
are categorised as conventional
cyclones in this article. Recent
surveys indicate that these conven-
tional cyclones have not met Figure 1 First- and second-stage cyclone operation
W/O disk For the shorter cyclone, the cone
erosion rate was approximately
2100 g/h for the conventional
W/ disk cyclone without a vortex stabiliser
at a gas velocity in the outlet tube
of 50 ft/s. The corresponding cone
erosion rate for the cyclone with a
vortex stabiliser at the same gas
5GO FTS
velocity was about 1400 g/h. The
cone erosion rate with the vortex
Figure 9 Effect of gas outlet velocity on second-stage cyclone cone erosion for cyclones stabiliser inserted was about 67% of
with and without a flat-plate vortex stabiliser (cyclone L/D = 3.1) the cone erosion for the cyclone
without the vortex stabiliser.
However, at an outlet gas velocity
closer to actual practice, the cone
5GO MS
erosion rate for an outlet gas veloc-
ity of about 150 ft/s for the cyclone
-ATERIAL &## EQ CATALYST with the vortex stabiliser was only
5GI FTS MS
#YCLONE SIZE IN CM
about 600 g/h. The corresponding
#ONE EROSION RATE GH