Review of Research Related to Fluid Cokers

Abstract

Fluid coking is a thermal conversion process that uses a conventional two-vessel circulating fluidized bed to convert heavy hydrocarbon feeds to lighter products. The technology was developed in the 1950s and since then has been used commercially around the world to upgrade heavy oils from various sources. Research work has been summarized related to all aspects of the fluid coking process, including reaction fundamentals, bed hydrodynamics, liquid distribution and jet–bed interaction, mixing of solid particles and agglomerates, mixing of vapors, control of the particle size, cleaning of the vapor stream in the scrubber, cleaning of the cold coke in the stripper, process monitoring, coke transfer lines, and the burner. The fluid coking process involves complex interactions between fluidized bed hydrodynamics, liquid feed injection, and reaction kinetics, and research tools that can take into account all of these interacting variables are requited to test methods to optimize the process. Fluid cokers can process many different types of feeds, and future applications may include blending and co-processing a variety of feedstocks ranging from waste plastics, pyrolytic bio-oil, and off-spec vegetable oils with heavy oil. The findings from this summary are also relevant for other applications that inject liquid into fluidized beds, such as the fluid catalytic cracking process, olefin polymerization cooled by liquid injection, granulators, and coaters.

A minireview on the utilization of petroleum coke as a precursor for carbon-based nanomaterials (CNMs): perspectives and potential applications

“…In the uid coking process, the raw material is sprayed onto a uidized bed of hot coke particles which react on its surface, then crack, producing coke as thin layers which are deposited on the coke itself. 18 Not only is delayed coking apparently a simpler method, it is also more widely used in reneries due to its lower capital cost and higher yield of coke produced than uid coking. 19 The United States has a coking capacity of 2.7 Mbbl per day of coke through delayed coking, approximately eighteen times greater than the uid coking capacity of around 16 Kbbl per day.…”

“…In the fluid coking process, the raw material is sprayed onto a fluidized bed of hot coke particles which react on its surface, then crack, producing coke as thin layers which are deposited on the coke itself. 18 …”

Experimental study of liquid vaporization in a fluidized bed

“…Liquid injection into a gas-solid fluidized bed has been applied in various industries. The applications range from coating [1][2][3][4][5] and granulation [6][7][8][9][10] processes in pharmaceutical and food industries, to reactor cooling in polyolefin production, [11,12] fluid catalytic cracking, [13][14][15][16][17] and fluid coking [18,19] in the petroleum industry. Models developed for these processes assume that the vaporization of the injected liquid depends on heat and mass transfer phenomena, [5,9,11,17,20] which are affected by complex combinations of agglomerate formation and breakup, solids mixing, and gas mixing.…”