4.7 Article

Modeling, simulation, and parametric sensitivity analysis of a commercial slurry-phase reactor for heavy oil hydrocracking

Journal

FUEL
Volume 244, Issue -, Pages 258-268

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2019.01.138

Keywords

Modeling; Simulation; Parametric sensitivity; Slurry-phase reactor; Hydrocracking; Hydrotreating

Funding

  1. Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo
  2. CONACYT

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Modeling and simulation of a commercial size unit for hydrocracking of an atmospheric residue (312 degrees C+) in a slurry-phase reactor are reported. The model of the industrial reactor is formulated taking into account axial and radial gradients of the state variables: composition and temperature. The mathematical model was partially discretized with finite central differences in the positional derivatives generating a matrix system of ordinary differential equations which was solved by a Runge-Kutta method. The hydrocracking reaction kinetic model is based on lumping technique and hydrotreating reactions kinetics are described by Langmuir-Hinshelwood and power-law approaches. All the intrinsic kinetic parameters and correlations used in the simulations were taken from the literature. Dynamic and steady-state simulations were performed with the objective to find a distribution of composition and temperature in the reactor as a function of time. Also a parametric sensitivity study was elaborated in order to analyze the effects of uncertainties of model parameters in the dynamic and steadystate model responses.

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