A new solution for obtaining high-purity hydrogen was developed at Rijeka Oil Refinery based on modern industrial technologies. This solution allows rapidly and inexpensively expanding the possibilities of the catalytic reforming process and as a result, increasing the efficiency of operation of the entire refinery without significant capital expenditures. It can be implemented at any refinery which has similar problems with a shortage of hydrogen or funds for building a new gas-separation or hydrogen production unit.At Rijeka Oil Refinery (OR), catalytic reforming is the only source of hydrogen for hydroprocesses. The purity of the hydrogen obtained is within the limits of 68-75 vol. % as a function of the process parameters with periodic regeneration of the catalyst and the state of the catalyst. Since it is the determining parameter for such secondary processes as hydrotreating and hydrocracking, studies have been conducted at the refinery to search for more efficient methods of enrichment of hydrogen-containing gas (HCG). There has been a process for obtaining hydrogen from crude oil cuts or natural gas in oil refinery practice for many years. Nevertheless, construction of the units for this process requires important investments and time. Due to stiffening of environmental requirements, INA d.d. (Horvatia) decided to invest in construction of a new unit for hydrotreating of heavy crude cuts at Rijeka OR; for more flexible operation of the OR, it was designed to operate in two modes: hydrotreating (HT) and mild hydrocracking (MHC) [1]. T h e H T m o d e w a s d e v e l o p e d f o r r e f i n i n g o f l i g h t g a s o i l f r o m t h e u n i t f o r a t m o s p h e r i c distillation of crude oil and catalytic light gasoil with production of the basic component of commercial diesel fuels [2, 3]. The MHC mode was developed for hydrotreating feedstock consisting of light and heavy vacuum gasoils with production of hydrotreated naphtha and gasoil and resid -cat cracker feedstock. These processes allow optimizing production of light products and operation of the cat cracker by reducing the sulfur content in the feedstock [4, 5].HCG (73-75% H 2 ) is fed into the HT/MHC unit from the catalytic reforming unit. However, a significant decrease in the hydrogen content in the circulating gas, even in feeding of HCG with a hydrogen content corresponding to the theoretical content, was noted in the HT/MHC unit soon after it was started up. The hydrogen 171 content in the circulating gas dropped to 65 vol. % and lower in operating the unit with output of more
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.