Operability of an Industrial Catalytic Naphtha Reformer in the Presence of Catalyst Deactivation

Abstract

Bifunctional naphtha reforming catalysts are deactivated by side reactions such as coking, sintering, and poisoning in the course of industrial operation. This results in a reduction of the octane number of the product in a commercial naphtha reforming unit. Catalyst deactivation is compensated for by increasing the operating temperature so that the primary product yields are kept constant during an operating cycle. In the present study, a deactivation model has been developed for industrial catalytic naphtha reformers. The parameters for the deactivation model have been estimated using plant data. The results of the model show that increasing the reactor weighted average inlet temperature (WAIT) can offset the decrease in aromatic yield. Concentration and temperature profiles have been obtained to provide information about the extent of conversion in the individual reactors. Reactor inlet temperature is an important parameter, which can significantly affect reformer performance, the aromatic yield increasing with an increase in temperature.

Simultaneous hydrogen and aromatics enhancement by obtaining optimum temperature profile and hydrogen removal in naphtha reforming process; a novel theoretical study

“…However, by application of a catalyst deactivation model [38], this conventional model has been also validated by comparison of the theoretical and experimental data for 800 operating days. This comparison has been presented in Table 3.…”

Optimizing an Industrial Scale Naphtha Catalytic Reforming Plant Using a Hybrid Artificial Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm Technique

“…Therefore, it was essential to compensate the deactivation effect by increasing the inlet temperature of reactors versus DOS. For an industrial catalytic naphtha reformer, it was reported that the variations of RON versus days on stream was an appropriate index to show the activity of the catalyst [33]. Consequently, to identify the activity of Pt-Re/Al2O3 catalyst, a set of ninety-seven data points during 919 days obtained from the target reforming plant.…”

Lumping procedure for a kinetic model of catalytic naphtha reforming

“…Many correlations have been proposed to model catalyst deactivation. The catalyst deactivation model employed is that proposed by Rahimpour (2006).…”

“…In order that the calculated parameters be comparable with those of Rahimpour (2006), the reference temperature, T0, is selected to be equal to 770 K. Each reactor is divided into 40 weight intervals such that in each interval the amount of catalyst activity is constant and is function of time and catalyst temperature. Reaction rate in each interval is obtained by Eq.…”

“…Hu et al (2003) used 17 lumps involving only 17 reactions in their simulation of naphtha catalytic reforming with the reaction model described by HWLH type reaction rates. In the present work, naphtha is considered in terms of 17 hydrocarbon fractions with 15 reactions and a simple deactivation model proposed by Rahimpour (2006) is used. All kinetic and deactivation parameters were obtained by optimization to conform to plant data.…”