Conversion of light naphtha to enhanced value products in an integrated two-zone reactor process

Abstract

An integrated process for conversion of a hydrocarbon stream comprising light naphtha to enhanced value products. The process includes passing the hydrocarbon stream through a first reactor, the first reactor being a catalytic bed reactor with a dual-function catalyst to simultaneously reform light naphtha to BTEX and crack light naphtha to ethane, propane, and butanes. Further, the process includes passing an effluent of the first reactor to a gas-liquid separating unit to generate a liquid stream and a gas stream, and passing the gas stream to a gas separator unit to remove hydrogen gas and methane and generate an enhanced gas stream. The process further includes passing the enhanced gas stream through a second reactor, the second reactor being a pyrolysis unit operated at steam cracking conditions to convert ethane, propane, and butanes in the enhanced gas stream to light. An associated system for performing the process is also provided wherein the integrated process does not include passage of a process stream to a separate and independent hydrocracking unit to crack light alkanes in the hydrocarbon stream to smaller alkanes.