UTM

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

-Gas Processing-
-Group Assignment-
Group
Group Members:
Members:
1.
1. ASHWENE
ASHWENE A/P
A/P GENGADHARAN
GENGADHARAN
2.
2. AZLINA
AZLINA MOHD
MOHD JUSUH
JUSUH
3.
3. KHALISAH
KHALISAH ZAHRI
ZAHRI

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 UTM
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

HYDROCARBON
CRACKING

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OBJECTIVES
4 objectives:
• To give detailed explanation about the type of
hydrocarbon cracking
• To specify the discussion on catalytic cracking of
hydrocarbon.
• To introduce the type of catalysts used in
catalytic cracking and the properties of the
catalysts.
• To describe the processes involved in catalytic
hydrocarbon cracking.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
 Early studies were done through related materials to the
subject taken from websites available on the internet.
 The topic of discussion was chosen based on the
simplicity of the scope of the topic .
 Detailed research on the topic were done in the
university library, Perpustakaan Sultanah Zanariah.
 Data for this presentation were collected originally from
some journals and books.
 Relevant key points are extracted out from the articles
taken in the sources mentioned above and rephrase for
the simplicity of the presentation and the convenience of
viewers.

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WHAT IS HYDROCARBON CRACKING?
• Hydrocarbon is an organic
compound containing hydrogen and carbon only.
• Cracking of hydrocarbons so called hydrocarbon
cracking means that the large hydrocarbon
molecules break into smaller molecules when
they are heated.
• Thus, cracking is a phenomenon by which higher
boiling point (higher molecular weight)
constituents in petroleum are converted into
lower boiling (lower molecular weight) products.

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TYPES OF HYDROCARBON CRACKING

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Thermal cracking
• Thermal cracking is a free radical chain
reaction where the free radical reacts with a
hydrocarbon by abstracting a hydrogen atom
to produce a stable end product and a new free
radical.
• Example: Migration of alkyl group. Thermal
cracking does not produce any degree of
branching in the product.

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Catalytic cracking
• Catalytic cracking is the thermal
decomposition of petroleum constituents’
hydrocarbon in the presence of a catalyst.
• Example: Gasoline produced is richer in
branded paraffins, cycloparaffins, and
aromatics. In short, the quality of gasoline is
improved.

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Dehydrogenation
• Dehydration is essentially the removal of
hydrogen from the parent molecule.
• Example: At 550ºC, n-butane loses hydrogen to
produce butene-1 and butene-2.

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Dehydrocyclization
• Dehydrocyclization is a catalytic aromatization
involving the loss of one mole of hydrogen
followed by ring formation and further loss of
hydrogen.
• Example: Paraffins (typically n-hexane and n-
heptane). n-hexane can be converted to
benzene, heptane is converted to toluene,and
octane is converted to ethyl benzene and o-
xylene.

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TYPES OF CATALYST USED IN
CATALYTIC CRACKING

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Natural Clays
 The first catalysts to be used industrially were natural clays of the
bentonite type.
 The main component of these type of catalysts is montmorillonite,
hydrated aluminium silicate containing some magnesia.
 These type of catalyst had to be activated by acid treatment and
hence modified their physical and chemical properties.
 ADVANTAGES

1. Surface area and porosity increased

2. Surface sites favoring hydrocarbon cracking were formed by ion
exchange

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Natural Clays
 DISADVANTAGES

Existence of impurities
1. These catalysts were very easily poisoned by sulfur derivatives
contained in crude feed stocks.

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Synthetic Catalysts
 Natural clays were replaced by synthetic catalysts

• Consists of amorphous aluminum-silica, produced gasoline with a

higher octane rating.
 ADVANTAGES

1. These type of catalyst display a very high thermal stability and

mechanical strength.

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Zeolite
 Zeolite cracking catalysts

- They are white fine powders whose chemical and physical

properties vary with the condition of preparation.

 ADVANTAGES

1. Zeolites have molecular sieves which account for the effective pass
through of the molecules through certain pores without steric
hindrance.
2. Zeolites have a very high stability due to its nature of the
compensating cations found in the sodalite structure.

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Zeolite
3. Have a much larger number of acid sites than the
amorphous alumina-silica catalysts
4. Zeolites formulations are already up to 10000 times
more active than conventional catalysts.

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PROPERTIES OF CATALYSTS
USED IN CRACKING

Selectivity

Thermal
properties and
mechanical
characteristics
Thermal stability THE
and resistance to
chemical agents
PROPERTIES

Activity

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EXPLANATION
 Activity

A suitable industrial catalyst must have enough activity to realize a

suitable conversion of the feedstock. This means the catalyst must be
active enough to speed up the reaction to give the desired conversion.

 Selectivity

Hydrocarbon mixture is liable to produce different kind of products

due to uncontrollable conversion during the reaction. Hence, a
catalyst should be highly selective to activate those reactions
that yield the wanted or desired products.

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EXPLANATION
 Thermal stability and resistance to chemical agents

Fresh catalyst with the required activity and selectivity will be of

value as long as these properties can be maintained near the optimal
level for a period of time suitable to convenient operation of the
industrial reactor.

 Thermal properties and mechanical characteristics

This includes crushing, erosion, attrition and abrasion, specific heat

and thermal conductivity.

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REFINARY
CATALYTI
C PROCESS

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 THE CATALYTIC CRACKING
PROCESS
 The reaction is an endothermic reaction.

 The temperature of the mixture is decreasing with time.

 During the processing, the solid coke is produced.

 During the regeneration, coke is burned off the catalyst to restore its
activity. This reaction is exothermic.

 The endothermic and exothermic condition balances the heat

required to maintain the process.

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 THE PROCESS OF CATALYTIC
CRACKING WHICH TAKES PART IN
FLUID CATALYTIC CRACKING
PROCESS (FCCU)

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 Riser reactor
Riser reactor

• the most endothermic cracking processes take place.

• producing the product required including coke.

• the riser contains the mixture of catalyst, feed and product.

• The primary feed: atmospheric, vacuum distillation (gas oils),

vacuum tower bottoms (vacuum resid; raw, hydrotreated,
deasphalted), atmospheric tower resid, coker gas oils and lube
extracts

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 The Stripper
The Stripper

• The coked catalyst from the riser reactor enter it.

• Steam is added.
• Unreacted-reacted hydrocarbon adsorb on the catalyst are
released.
• Produced stripped catalyst.

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 The Regenerator
The Regenerator

• The stripped catalyst led to the regenerator

• Air is added
• The combustion of coke on catalyst occurs

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CONCLUSION

 There are 4 types of hydrocarbon process which are thermal

cracking, catalytic cracking, dehydrogenation, and
dehydrocyclization.

 The catalytic cracking discussed in these presentation uses

catalysts to speed up the rate of cracking processes.

 The mechanism of catalytic process can be divided into 3

components which are riser reactor, stripper and regenerator.

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REFERENCES
 W.L. Nelson.(1958).”Petroleum Refinery Engineering”.McGraw-
Hill,Inc, 4th Edition(759-819).
 Daniel Decroocq.(1958).”Catalytic Cracking of Heavy Petroleum
Fractions”.Institut Francais Du Petrole Publications,1st Edition(7-
20).
 http://www.absorblearning.com/media/item.action?quick=11p

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