AM-95-34 FCC REGENERATOR OXYGEN ENRICHMENT

Description:

A direct, cost-effective method to debottleneck cracking units, which are constrained by air-blower capacity, velocity or pressure considerations in the regenerator or downstream units, or coke combustion kinetics, is to enrich the combustion air with a higher purity oxygen gas stream. Presented in this paper are, (i) a summary of the recent advances in air separations technology for the production of medium-purity oxygen, which combined with the increasing requirement for higher sulfur recovery in refineries, have considerably improved the economic benefits of using oxygen-enriched air, (ii) a summary of materials combustibility studies targeted at safety considerations for refining application, especially catalytic cracking, and (iii) a summary of laboratory studies which were aimed at understanding the effect of oxygen enrichment on regenerator nitrogen and sulfur chemistry.