Improvement of the Middle Distillate Yields during Crude Oil Hydrotreatment in a Trickle-Bed Reactor

The growing demand for high-quality middle distillates is increasing worldwide, whereas the demand for low-value oil products, such as heavy oils and residues, is decreasing. Thus, maximizing the production of more liquid distillates of very high quality is of immediate interest to refiners. At the same time, environmental legislation has led to more strict specifications of petroleum derivatives. Hydrotreatment (HDT) of crude oil is one of the most challenging tasks in the petroleum refining industry, which has not been reported widely in the literature. In this work, crude oil was hydrotreated upon a commercial cobalt-molybdenum on alumina (Co-Mo/gamma-Al2O3) catalyst presulfided at specified conditions. Detailed pilot-plant experiments were conducted in a continuous-flow isothermal trickle-bed reactor (TBR), and the main hydrotreating reactions were hydrodesulfurization (HDS), hydrodenitrogenation (HDN), hydrodeasphaltenization (HDAs), and hydrodemetallization (HDM), which includes hydrodevanadization (HDV) and hydrodenickelation (HDNi). The reaction temperature (7), the hydrogen pressure (P), and the liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) were varied with certain ranges, with constant hydrogen to oil (H-2/Oil) ratio. The effects of T, P, and LHSV on the conversion of sulfur, nitrogen, vanadium, nickel, and asphaltene were studied. The results showed that high T and P and low LHSV in HDS, HDN, HDV, HDNi, and HDAs of crude oil improve the sulfur (S), nitrogen (N), metals [vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni)], and asphaltene (Asph) conversion. The hydrotreated crude oil has been distilled into the following fractions: light naphtha (LN), heavy naphtha (HN), heavy kerosene (HK), light gas oil (LGO), and reduced crude residue (RCR), to compare the yield of these fractions produced by distillation after the HDT process to those produced by conventional methods (i.e., HDT of each fraction separately after the distillation). The yield of the middle distillate showed greater yield compared to the middle distillate produced by conventional methods. The properties of RCR produced using both methods are also discussed.