Experimental Evaluation of Hydrotreated Vegetable Oils as Novel Feedstocks for Steam-Cracking Process

Abstract

Hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVOs) are currently a popular renewable energy source, frequently blended into a Diesel-fuel. In the paper, HVO potential as feedstock for the steam-cracking process was investigated, since HVOs promise high yields of monomers for producing green polymers and other chemicals. Prepared HVO samples of different oil sources were studied experimentally, using pyrolysis gas chromatography to estimate their product yields in the steam-cracking process and compare them to traditional feedstocks. At 800 °C, HVOs provided significantly elevated ethylene yield, higher yield of propylene and C4 olefins, and lower oil yield than both atmospheric gas oil and hydrocracked vacuum distillate used as reference traditional feedstocks. The HVO preparation process was found to influence the distribution of steam-cracking products more than the vegetable oil used for the HVO preparation. Furthermore, pyrolysis of HVO/traditional feedstock blends was performed at different blending ratios. It provided information about the product yield dependence on blending ratio for future process design considerations. It revealed that some product yields exhibit non-linear dependence on the blending ratio, and therefore, their yields cannot be predicted by the simple principle of additivity.

Fluidized bed steam cracking of rapeseed oil: exploring the direct production of the molecular building blocks for the plastics industry

“…These processes fall under the general umbrella of hydroprocessing technologies, which involve the removal of the double bonds and heteroatoms from vegetable oil in the presence of a catalyst and hydrogen atmosphere [32][33][34]. Since hydroprocessed vegetable oils (HVOs) are predominantly n-paraffins, steam cracking of HVO represents an opportunity to produce the molecular building blocks of the plastic industry [35,36]. Karaba et al demonstrated the suitability of HVO for the steam cracking process by obtaining large yields of ethylene (39.9-45.6 wt%), propylene (18.7-19.2 wt%) and C 4 hydrocarbons (15.2-18.2 wt%) from a micro pyrolysis reactor [36].…”

“…Since hydroprocessed vegetable oils (HVOs) are predominantly n-paraffins, steam cracking of HVO represents an opportunity to produce the molecular building blocks of the plastic industry [35,36]. Karaba et al demonstrated the suitability of HVO for the steam cracking process by obtaining large yields of ethylene (39.9-45.6 wt%), propylene (18.7-19.2 wt%) and C 4 hydrocarbons (15.2-18.2 wt%) from a micro pyrolysis reactor [36].…”

Tracking the Biogenic Component of Lower-Carbon Intensive, Co-Processed Fuels—An Overview of Existing Approaches

“…Therefore, the use of such crude biomass oils remain a longer-term possibility. Table 1 shows the typical composition of various bio-based feedctocks that can be used for co-processing in refineries [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Co-Pyrolysis of Unsaturated C4 and Saturated C6+ Hydrocarbons—An Experimental Study to Evaluate Steam-Cracking Performance

“…The whole situation is even more complicated by the fact that C4 hydrocarbon fraction is not commonly processed by steam cracking alone, but in mixtures with heavier alkane materials with the aim to optimize the cracking capacity and to reduce the coke deposition [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Mutual interactions of hydrocarbons that are present in such a mixture are very essential in such situations and they are also generally important in relation to processing feedstocks that are based on renewable materials [ 14 ].…”