OP-II-3

KN-5BIOMASS TO OLEFINS: CRACKING OF RENEWABLE NAPHTHAVan Geem K.M. 1 , Abhari R. 2 , Pyl S. 1 , Reyniers M. 1 , Marin G.B. 11 Laboratorium voor Chemische Technologie, Universiteit Gent, Technologiepark 918,9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium, e-mail: kevin.vangeem@ugent.be2 Syntroleum®, 5416 S. Yale Ave. Suite 400, Tulsa, OK 74135, USAThe recent high oil prices and increasing concern about global warming havefocused research attention to alternative routes and feedstocks for the production oflight olefins. A promising route for the production of olefins from wastes andrenewable fractions is the combination of the Bio-Synfining process with atraditional steam cracker. Syntroleum’s patent-pending 1;2 Bio-Synfining processcatalytically converts the triglycerides and/or fatty acids from fats, algae andvegetable oils to a high quality synthetic paraffinic kerosene (SPK) or diesel and arenewable naphtha in three steps. First, the raw feedstocks are treated to removecatalyst poisons and water. In the second step, the fatty acid chains aredeoxygenated and transformed into mainly paraffins in a hydrotreater. For most biooils,fats, and greases, the hydrotreater liquid product consists mainly of C15-C18paraffins. In the third step of the process, these long straight-chain paraffins arehydrocracked into shorter branched paraffins. The hydrocracked products fall mainlyin the kerosene and naphtha boiling range.The current contribution will discuss on the one hand details about the Bio-Synfining Process. Bio-Synfining converts low value bio oils to paraffinic dieselor jet fuel, LPG, and naphtha. All the steps of the Bio-Synfining process have beendemonstrated at the pilot scale and will be discussed. Commercially availablehydrotreating catalysts were available in the two stage hydrodeoxygenation (HDO)reactor system used in the pilot tests. With the acid-wash pretreatment step, theHDO catalyst activity remained stable during the four-month pilot plant tests. Thenaphtha fraction from the hydrocracked HDO paraffins was in the 0.69-0.71 specificgravity range regardless of whether diesel or jet fuel was produced.On the other hand the contribution will discuss the results of an extensive steamcracking pilot plant campaign performed with renewable naphtha from the Bio-Synfining process. This study was performed on the pilot plant of the Laboratoriumvoor Chemische Technologie 3;4 (LCT) in Ghent university and involved the detailedcharacterization of the naphtha using GC×GC TOF-MS and GC×GC FID important30