DEVELOPMENT OF CATALYTIC CRACKING TECHNOLOGY - A LESSON IN CHEMICAL REACTOR DESIGN

Catalytic cracking converts heavy petroleum fractions into gasoline, distillates, and light olefins. It revolutionized refining over 50 years ago and has been evolving continuously since. Catalytic cracking was commercialized in fixed, moving, and fluid-bed reactors (fluid catalytic cracking, FCC, has created fine powder fluidization). The design aspects of this important process, in three major reactor types, constitute a fascinating lesson in reaction engineering. We examined the properties of catalytic cracking, its chemistry, kinetics, and thermodynamics, and their influence on design. Of the hundreds of complex reactions, catalytic and thermal, it is the conversion of hydrocarbon to coke and gas that dominates reactor and regenerator designs. The effects of hydrodynamics on cracking are examined through the concept of contact time distribution, and the discussion of the various reactor and regenerator types concludes with a summary of process control. © 1990, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.