AM-02-46 PHILLIPS’ S ZORB-DIESEL SULFUR REMOVAL TECHNOLOGY

Description:

Any number of mature hydroprocessing technologies are available for complying with new clean fuels regulations. Many strides have been made in catalyst technology, reactor design, and process configuration, but even with incremental changes, the conventional technologies are limited by their chemistry. As the specifications for clean fuels grow tighter, the real costs of complying with them using conventional technologies increase. To limit compliance costs, Phillips Petroleum Company has developed S Zorb Sulfur Removal Technology (SRT) upon a different kind of chemistry. In its inaugural application to low sulfur gasoline, S Zorb SRT has shown that it can perform deep desulfurization while retaining octane. Thus it avoids one of the major real costs of conventional desulfurization technologies. The unit at Phillips’ Borger, Texas, refinery has confirmed that the process can be operated commercially. Now S Zorb SRT changes the world of diesel desulfurization. Pilot plant results have shown that the S Zorb-Diesel process desulfurizes to ultra low sulfur levels (< 15 ppm) with far less chemical hydrogen consump tion than a conventional hydrodesulfurization unit. In some cases, zero chemical hydrogen consumption has been achieved. Thus, high chemical hydrogen consumption, once thought to be unavoidable, can be eliminated from the ultra low sulfur diesel equation. When hydrogen is removed from the equation, the additional infrastructure and costs associated with supplying it, including new steam methane reformers, purification units, and emissions of NOX and CO2, are also eliminated.