4-Parallel Heavy Oil Hydrotreater
An existing ILS client initially approached ILS for help in getting an existing laboratory set-up that had been made by an ILS competitor running. ILS collaborated closely with the client on this project to help them solve the problems with their existing unit.
The unit consists of 4 parallel batch reactors plus a separate pre-sulphiding reactor, which was used for catalyst pre-sulphiding.
One of the major challenges of this unit was the high reaction temperature and issues around reactor fouling. Feedstocks containing significant amounts of asphaltenes are prone to fouling. ILS desinged the unit in such a way that products were not stripped off, which would otherwise result in asphaltene precipitation and subsequent coke formation. Special high-temperature autoclaves, with long operating lifetimes were successfully made. Implementation of a custom oven as opposed to cumbursome heat-tracing and insulation meant that a design could be made where all parts were easily accessible and maintained. This was particularly important to make possible the measuring of both hot- and cold-product fractions, which had been formed in small amounts. This, combined with the implementation of a powerful on-line micro-GC meant that excellent mass-balances could be obtained with this set-up.
Last-but-not-least the unit was co-developed with the safety and automation group of our client.
