An Experimental Study to Investigate Propylene Increasing in the FCC Process by High-Severity Condition

The demands for propylene from fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) units will increase over the next few years to fill a supply gap that is developing as a result of a lag in steam cracker capacity expansion and an increase in the processing of light feedstocks (e.g., ethane in steam crackers). This will lead to opportunities for refiners to boost revenues by producing incremental propylene for sale onto the petrochemicals market through the use of high-severity (HS) FCC technology and ZSM-5 additive technologies. This article presents process features, operating conditions, benefits of HS FCC processes, and a description of a bench-scale experimental investigation. This setup was studied to investigate propylene production yields. Results of the bench-scale experiments evaluation with FCC catalyst (Futura 68x, Grace-Davidson, Augusta, GA) show propylene production yield increasing in high-severity FCC mode in comparison with conventional FCC mode. The experimental data evaluation at the bench-scale shows that at high temperature and high catalyst-to-oil ratio the quantity of propylene will be increased more than other components, such as ethylene and butene.