Catalytic advances in vacuum gas oil hydrocracking

Abstract

Hydrocracking still maintains the pivotal role in the industry owing to the production of highly demanded transportation fuels. Having comprised pretreatment of VGO, comparative research onrecent catalysts, this review paper provides athorough picture about all consecutive steps in the hydrocracking process of vacuum gasoil. Discussing recovery of VGO from vacuum residue with minimum sulfur content, the focus was put on the catalyst characterizations and their influence on the conversion of VGO, the yield of middle distillate, gasoline as well asnaphtha. Both zeolite and amorphous catalysts have undergone a comparative analysis interms of their hydrocracking properties as well as catalytic activities during provided conditions. The article also examines the process of hydrocracking of vacuum gas-oil from Baku oils with the participation of modified aluminosilicate catalyst containing Ni, Mo to obtain high-quality raw materials for environmentally friendly diesel fuel and catalytic cracking process. The hydrocracking process of vacuum gas-oil conducted at 3-8 MPa pressure, 400-450 °C temperature range, in a flow-type Hungarian unit with a reactor capacity of 200 ml. During the investigations of temperature on hydrocracking process it was revealed that, when temperature rises from 400 to 460 °С the yield of diesel fraction increases from 35 to 50% wt. The yield of gasoline fraction constitutes 0-6% wt. and the produce of residue fraction decreases from 65% to 45%. With increasing of temperature from 400 °C to 450 °C the amount of sulphur decreases from 0.01% to 0.005% in composition of diesel fraction. Keywords: vacuum gasoil; hydrocracking; diesel fraction; alumosilicate; catalyst; hydrodesulfurization.