Computational investigation of hydrodynamics and cracking reaction in a heavy oil riser reactor

Abstract This paper presents a computational investigation of hydrodynamics, heat transfer and cracking reaction in a heavy oil riser operated in a novel operating mode of low temperature contact and high catalyst-to-oil ratio. Through incorporating feedstock vaporization and a 12-lump cracking kinetics model, a validated gas–solid flow model has been extended to the analysis of the hydrodynamic and reaction behavior in an industrial riser. The results indicate that the hydrodynamics, temperature and species concentration exhibit significantly nonuniform behavior inside the riser, especially in the atomization nozzle region. The lump concentration profiles along the riser height provide useful information for riser optimization. Compared to conventional fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process, feedstock conversion and gasoline yield are respectively increased by 1.9 units and 1.0 unit in the new FCC process, the yield of liquefied petroleum gas is increased by about 1.0 unit while dry gas yield is reduced by about 0.3 unit.