Sensitivity and economic analysis of a catalytic distillation process for alkylation desulfurization of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) gasoline
2016
Ha, Ying | Guo, Benshuai | Li, Yonghong
BACKGROUND: The issues of gasoline desulfurization are becoming more important because the regulated sulfur limits are being set lower and lower. Among the new desulfurization technologies, the olefin alkylation of thiophenic sulfur (OATS) process is more attractive than hydrodesulfurization because of its mild operating conditions and low loss of octane number. In this work, a sensitivity analysis and an economic analysis of a catalytic distillation process for alkylation desulfurization of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) gasoline are presented. The objective is to evaluate the effects of various design and operating parameters on the OATS process by using a realistic FCC gasoline fraction. RESULTS: A sensitivity analysis performed for operating pressure, reflux ratio, bottom flow rate, feed conditions, number of separate stages, number of reactive stages, catalyst weight, feed location, reactive zone position, and an economic analysis based on total annual costs (TAC) for these variables were studied. CONCLUSION: The results show the qualitative environmental and economic effect of several design variables and operating conditions on the OATS process and provide a direction to the further design. In addition, more attention should be paid to feed flow rate control. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry
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