Lumped kinetics model and its on-line application to commercial catalytic naphtha reforming process

Based on the lumping theory and the reaction network with seventeen lumped components reported earlier, a new kinetic model involving twenty lumped components and thirty-one reactions was developed for catalytic reforming process.The subdivision of 8-carbon aromatics and all the hydrocracking reactions of the paraffin lumps were considered in this model.The 20-lumped kinetics model was used to simulate commercial continuous catalytic reforming (CCR) unit.Fair agreement between the calculated and operating data was obtained and the simulation precision of cracking products by the 20-lumped kinetics model was better than that by the 17-lumped model.By adopting an on-line prediction and correction strategy, the 20-lumped model was also used to on-line calculate aromatics yield, yield of each aromatics lump, and RON (octane number of reformate) of the CCR process.The trend and precision of on-line prediction were very good.The average deviations between on-line predicted and actual aromatics yield and RON were 0.52%(mass) and 0.36 respectively,nearly equivalent to the off-line prediction performance.