Oil Cuts Evaluation Obtained by Molecular Distillation from Heavy Petroleum Fractions in the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Process

Abstract

Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is a refining process that cracks heavy oil molecules in light fractions, mainly compounds with 3 to 12 carbon atoms. It is composed by a converter, main fractionator and gas plant. In this work FCC was modeled using Aspen HYSYS Cat cracker process simulator aiming to evaluate the true boiling point (TBP) curves of oil cuts obtained by falling film molecular distillation from a Brazilian atmospheric petroleum residue. Five different petroleum cuts TBP curves with boiling range between 673.15- 974.15 K were fed in FCC converter. Process products streams: flue gases, liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, light cycle oil and clarified oil were compared with industrial data run with conventional oil mixture, showing an increase of 35 wt% in products yields, indicating the molecular distillation as an alternative technique to process petroleum residues along with FCC process to raise refinery production of valuable products.