Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of Russian ...

OP-IV-1DEEP DESULPHURIZATION OF PETROLEUM STREAMS: NOVELTECHNOLOGIES AND APPROACHES TO CONSTRUCTION NEWPLANTS AND UPGRADING EXISTING FACILITIESDatsevich L.B.* , ****, Grosch F.*, Köster R.**, Latz J.***, Pasel J.***, Peters R.***,Pohle T.**, Schiml H.**, Wache W.**, Wolfrum R.**MPCP GmbH, Bayreuth, Germany,**BAYERNOIL Raffineriegesellschaft mbH, Ingolstadt, Germany***Institute for Energy Research – Fuel Cells (IEF-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH,Jülich, Germany****University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, GermanyOne of the most important challenges that the refinery industry faces nowadays is thecontinuous demand on the low sulphur content in transportation and other fuels. Changes inlegislative norms enacted by different counties towards both the sulphur concentration and theapplication of new feedstocks (e.g. plant oils) force the fuel manufacturers over the world tosearch for the effective ways in processing.The paper reviews the situation in the development of the new approaches todesulphurization and focuses on the scientific and practical issues important for refineries.Despite the fact that a great number of new chemical and adsorptive procedures for thesulphur reduction have been developed last time, they are not and, apparently, will not be ableto compete with the traditional desulphurization method – hydrotreating, which do and willdominate in industry.In refinery, the continuous hydrodesulphurization (HDS) process is carried out in the socalledtrickle-bed reactors (TBR) where the hydrogen-content gas flows downwards togetherwith liquid through the fixed catalyst.In order to provide the necessary intensity of mass transfer as well as the demandedtemperature control, an enormous quantity of the hydrogen-content gas (sometimes up to3000 Nm³gas/m³oil) should be recycled through the catalyst bed. Since the recyclecompressors can only operate under mild temperatures that are significantly less than those inthe reactor, the recuperative heat exchangers should be used on the gas loop. That increasesthe pressure drop and, therefore, leads to considerable requirements of energy forcompressing. It is not surprising that 20% of energy consumption in a refinery is spent inhydrotreating processes. The detailed analysis of energy expenditures in an operating HDSplant shows that, due to the nature inherent in two phase gas-liquid flow, TBR units have very140