Exxonmobil Research and Engineering Company

Exxonmobil Chemical Patents Inc.

Christopher Gordon Smalley

Rathna P Davuluri

Brian A Cunningham

Alvin U Chen

Masaaki Sugita

Robert F Tammera

Mark Paul Hagemeister

Lu Han

Christopher S Gurciullo

Joseph S Famolaro

Phillip A Deis

Edward Nicholas Jones

Mohsen N Harandi

James Richardson Lattner

David L Johnson

James Harding Beech, Jr

Robert G Tinger

George A Swan, Iii

Jeffrey Scott Smith

Anastasios I Skoulidas

James Ronald Bielenberg

Rustom Merwan Billimoria

Timothy Paul Bender

Todd R Steffens

James H Beech

William R Gunther

Jon Edmond Randolph Stanat

Bing Du

Steven S Lowenthal

Richard C Senior

Dana W Nouri

Timothy Forbes

Tarrant Jay Falcke

Robert Frank Tammera

Nicholas E Smith

Norihiro Nakashima

Kentaro Kobayashi

Methods and systems producing gasoline boiling range hydrocarbons from light paraffins are disclosed. Such methods may include exposing a paraffin-containing stream to a catalyst in a side riser of a fluid catalytic cracking reactor under effective conditions for dehydrogenating at least a portion of paraffins in the stream into olefins and thereby producing an olefin-containing stream, wherein the paraffin-containing stream comprises greater than 50 wt % isobutane; and alkylating olefins in the olefin-containing stream to produce a product stream comprising an alkylate fraction comprising hydrocarbons boiling between 100&#xb0; F. and 400&#xb0; F.

Methods and systems for producing gasoline from light paraffins

An FCC unit enables the normal regenerator to be eliminated by carrying out catalyst regeneration in the reactor section of the unit using air, oxygen-enriched air or even relatively pure oxygen as the stripping medium in the stripping section of the reactor while maintaining overall reducing conditions so that sulfur and nitrogen are produced in the form of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other reduced species. The combustion gases from the stripper are sent from the reactor with the cracking vapors to the FCC main fractionator, wet gas compressor and gas plant to process the by-products of the coke combustion along with the FCC reactor effluent. The principle is applicable to grass-roots FCC units with its potential for elimination of a major unit component but it also has potential for application to existing units to reduce the load on the regenerator or eliminate the need for the existing regenerator so that an existing regenerator may be converted to a parallel or auxiliary reactor system.

Fluid catalytic cracking unit with low emissions

A method of predicting the tendency of a heavy oil feed to generate coke deposits in the FCC riser under a given set of operating parameters in the unit; thus, by utilizing operating parameters appropriate to the feed, the formation of coke deposits in the riser may be minimized. The margin between the theoretical dew point of the hydrocarbon feed established from unit operating parameters and the theoretical mix zone temperature in the feed injection zone of the unit is developed by applying a regression-derived linear model from multiple rigorous model runs. The mix zone of the unit is then operated at a temperature which reduces the level of riser coking predicted from this ascertainable margin or, at least, maintains it within levels which are predictable and acceptable.

Reduction of coking in FCCU feed zone

A method of improving the uniformity of the contacting of a heavy oil feed with FCC cracking catalyst in the feed zone of an FCC cracking riser in which the heavy oil feed is injected into the catalyst in the riser by means of feed injectors located around the riser, the method comprising minimizing the differences in the temperature profile in the oil/catalyst mixture across the feed zone by varying the oil feed rate to the injectors.

Method for optimizing catalyst/oil mixing in an FCC reactor feed zone

The present invention is an improved design and operation of a short contact time Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) Reactor wherein the upper internal riser and a lower internal riser are in fluid connection with one another and provide an improved disengaging zone for entraining the vapors from the dilute phase area of the FCC reactor. Detailed preferred embodiments include improvements over the prior art to the internal central riser, riser termination apparatus, cyclone separators, and a coke mitigation baffle system, as well as associated improved fluid catalytic cracking processes utilizing the novel reactor design.

FCC reactor and riser design for short contact-time catalytic cracking of hydrocarbons

The invention relates to a process of alkylating aromatic hydrocarbons, and more particularly a process of making paraxylene by alkylation of benzene and/or toluene with methanol and/or dimethyl ether, and to an apparatus for carrying out said process, the improvement comprising staged injection of one of the reactants, with the stages separated by structured packing so as to minimize at least one of gas phase back-mixing, by-pass phenomena, and gas bubble size.

Fluid bed reactor with staged baffles

The present invention relates to an improved design for use in fluid cracking processes, preferably used in either a fluid catalytic cracking ('FCC') process or a fluid coking process. In particular, the present invention relates to an apparatus and process for improving the separation and distributing spent catalyst and gases in a spent catalyst riser associated with a fluid cracking process, and most preferably for use in a spent catalyst riser associated with an FCC regenerator vessel. A novel catalyst distributor design and associated processes are presented herein which significantly improve combustion in the dense-phase fluidized catalyst bed of a regenerator and results in improved regenerator dense bed combustion and lower migration of oxygen into the regenerator overhead region. As a result, afterburn is significantly reduced in the regenerator and higher catalyst bed temperatures are achieved with significantly more uniform bed temperatures due to the improved combustion characteristics in the dense-phase fluidized catalyst bed.

Spent catalyst riser distributor

In a process for the production of para-xylene, an aromatic feedstock comprising toluene and/or benzene is reacted with methanol under alkylation conditions in a reactor in the presence of a fluidized bed of solid catalyst particles to produce a vapor phase effluent comprising para-xylene, water, unreacted toluene and/or benzene and solid catalyst fines. The vapor phase effluent is contacted with a liquid hydrocarbon quench stream under conditions to condense a minor portion of the vapor phase effluent and produce a condensate which contains at least some of the catalyst fines and which is substantially free of an aqueous phase. The condensate containing said catalyst fines is then separated from the remainder of the vapor phase effluent.

Production of para-xylene by the methylation of benzene and/or toluene

The present invention is an improved regenerated catalyst bend assembly for a fluid catalytic cracking unit. In a preferred embodiment, the reduced elevation ('RE-bend' or 'REL-bend') regenerated catalyst return line assembly of the present invention has an outlet elevation that is lower than the inlet elevation of the RE-bend or REL-bend regenerated catalyst return line assembly, and a process for utilizing the assembly in a fluid catalytic cracking unit. The present invention is especially useful in the modification of existing fluid catalytic cracking units to lower the elevation of the outlet of the regenerated catalyst return line assembly, thereby providing needed space to increase the fluid catalytic cracking reactor riser length.

Reduced elevation catalyst return line for a fluid catalytic cracking unit

This invention relates to the catalytic cracking of a hydrocarbon feed. In particular, this invention relates to an apparatus and process utilizing a catalyst stripper section of a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) reactor with chordal trays designed to provide improved stripping of hydrocarbons from spent FCC catalyst in an FCC reactor stripping zone.

FCC catalyst stripper configuration

This invention relates to an apparatus and process for injecting a petroleum feed. More particularly, a liquid petroleum feed is atomized with a nozzle assembly apparatus in which the apparatus has injection nozzles that produce a generally flat spray pattern of finely dispersed feed. The injection nozzles are each designed such that the overall effect of the different spray patterns from the individual nozzles provides a more uniform feed coverage across the catalyst stream.

FCC feed injection system

This invention provides feed introduction devices, and processes for using same, which minimize catalyst clogging. In particular, the invention is to a feed introduction device having a first end in fluid communication with a feed source, a second end in fluid communication with a reactor and a deviation zone between the first end and the second end to deviate the flow of feed about a deviation angle from the first end toward the second end. According to the invention, the deviation angle is greater than 90 degrees.

Minimizing catalyst backflow in fluidized bed reactors

Growing community of inventors

Manassas, VA, United States of America

Christopher Gordon Smalley