AM-99-30 MOBIL’S OCTGAIN™ PROCESS: FCC GASOLINE DESULFURIZATION REACHES A NEW PERFORMANCE LEVEL

Description:

The majority of sulfur in the refinery gasoline pool comes from FCC gasoline. Post FCC gasoline desulfurization is an attractive option to meet increasingly stringent gasoline sulfur specification. Conventional gasoline desulfurization technology makes it difficult to preserve octane quality while providing the low sulfur levels necessary to meet upcoming gasoline specifications. Octane maintenance becomes especially difficult as the olefin level of the gasoline increases. A commercially proven solution from Mobil, the OCTGAINTM process, fulfills this need. The simple fixed-bed, low-pressure process uses a proprietary Mobil catalyst system to desulfurize cracked gasoline of various boiling ranges, sulfur and olefin contents. Since OCTGAINTM was initially commercialized in 1991, additional R&D efforts have been devoted to increase catalyst activity and gasoline yield/octane selectivity. This paper gives an overview of the OCTGAIN process, commercial performance of the OCTGAIN catalyst systems and detailed performance on the improvements seen in the new 3rd Generation OCT220 catalyst development.