TUTORIAL 5

GROUP : CONNIELYN, ADILIA MAISARAH, FARJANAH, NAZURAH, IRFAN MUBASIR

Thermal Cracking and Coking

1. Describe in detail the three commonly used in thermal cracking processes.

a) Mild cracking (visbreaking)
- Used to crack the residue at temperature 471-493 oC at 50-200 psig just enough to
lower its viscosity and to produce light products.
- Low conversion 10% is happened at 221 oC.
b) Delayed coking
- Moderate thermal cracking at 482-516 oC at 90 psig used to convert the residue into
lighter products and leaving 30% yielded coking behind.
- The coking is removed hydraulically. The residence time of the process is until the
reactor is full of coke.
c) Severe thermal cracking (fluid coking and flexi coking)
- Part of the coke is burned and used for heating the feed at 482-556 oC at 10 psig in the
cracking reactor, as in fluid coking. Where the steam is used to gasify most of the coke
(flexicoking) in fluidized bed reactor.
- Gives high yield of light ends with less coke yield (20% for fluid coking and 2% for
flexicoking).

2. What is visbreaking? Describe in detail Foster Wheeler (FW)/Universal Oil

Products (UOP) visbreaking process with an appropriate process schematic
diagram.
The unit produces gas, naphtha, heavy naphtha, visbreaker gas oil, visbreaker fuel oil (a
mixture of visbreaker gas oil and vsibreaker tar). A given conversion in visbreaker can be
achieved by two ways:
 High temp., low residence time cracking: Coil Visbreaking.
 Low temp., high residence time cracking: Soaker visbreaking.
 Figure 1: Visbreaking with Soaker
a) Soaker Visbreaker
The furnace operators at a lower outlet temperature and a soaker drum is provided at the
outlet of the furnace to give adequate residence time so that the furnace can operate at lower
temperature. Soaker results in saving of energy because of the lower temperature with less
coke tendency, larger gas oil yield. The soaker drum also increasing the heater run and
reducing the frequency of unit shut down for heater decoking. The products from soaker drum
are quenched and distilled in the downstream fractionator.

Figure 2: Coil visbreaker

b) Coil Visbreaker
In coil visbreaking process the desired cracking is achieved in the furnace at high temperature
and the products of cracking are quenched and distilled in a downstream fractionator. Advances
in visbreaker coil heater design now allows for the isolation of one or more heater passes for
decoking, eliminating the need of shut the entire visbreaker down for furnace decoking.

3. Distinguish coil visbreaker compared to soaker visbreaker configuration and write

the advantages and applications of both these visbreakers.

Coil visbreaker Soaker Visbreaker

- Coil visbreaker has - A soaker is employed

coils that heats between the
vacuum or visbreaker furnace
atmospheric residue and the quenching

Configuration in the visbreaker step.

furnace for cracking.
- - it is often described
- It is a low
as high temperature,
temperature, long
short residence time
residence time route.
route.
- Slightly more stable - Less capital
which is important for investment.
some feedstock and - Consumes less
applications. amount of fuel.
- Longer on-stream
Advantages time.
 - Its flexibility allows the - Allows vacuum or
production of heavy cuts, atmospheric residue to
boiling in the vacuum gas oil remain in the soaker drum for
Application
range. a period of time in an
elevated temperature for
cracking to occur.

4. Draw the process flow chart of the delayed coking process and explain.

The delayed coking process consists of a furnace, two coke drums, fractionator, and
stripping section. Vacuum residue enters the flash zone of the distillation column. Fractions that
are lighter than the heavy gas oil are flashed off and remaining oil are fed to the coking
furnace.

Steam is injected into the furnace to prevent premature coking. Feed to the coker drums
is heated above 482 ℃. Liquid-vapour mixture leaving the furnace passes into one of the coking
drum. Coke is deposited in this drum for 24 hours while the other drums are decoked and
cleaned.
 Hot vapours from the coke drums are quenched by the liquid feed to prevent any coke
formation in the fractionator and simultaneously condensing a portion of the heavy key to be
recycled. Vapours consists steam and products of the thermal cracking reaction (gas, naphtha
and gas oil) from the top of the coke drum are returned to the bottom of the fractionator.
Vapours flow up from the quench tray of the fractionator. Above the fresh feed entry of the
fractionator, additional trays are present below the gas oil drawoff tray. These trays are
refluxed with partially cooled gas oil to provide fine trim control of the gas oil end point and to
minimize entrainment of any fresh feed liquid or recycle liquid into the gas oil product. The gas
oil side draw is a conventional configuration employing a six-to-eight tray stripper with the
steam introduced under the bottom tray for vaporization of light ends to control the initial
boiling point of the gas oil.

Steam and vaporized light ends are returned from the top of the gas oil stripper to the
fractionator. A pumparound reflux system is provided at the draw tray to recover heat at a high
temperature level and minimize the low temperature level heat air removed by the overhead
condenser. Low temperature level heat is rejected to the atmosphere through the water cooling
tower or the aerial coolers. If a naphtha side draw is employed, additional trays are required
above the naphtha draw trays.

Feed is directed to enter one of the drums, where the reactions takes place and coke is
deposited onto the drum walls, and the product flow back to the distillation column. Drum is
considered to be in “filling mode”. Another condition is when the drum is in “cutting” mode
where it is cut off from the rest of the system while coke is being removed.

5. Explain delayed coking process variables.

Process variables Feedstock variables Engineering variables

Cycle time Characterization factor Mode of operation

Temperature Conradson carbon -

Pressure Sulfur content Capacity

Recycle ratio Metal content, characterization Equipment used for coke
removal and handling

6. Write about the types of coke and their properties

Coke amount can be up to 30 wt% in delayed coking. It is produced as green coke

which requires calcination to remove the volatiles as fuel product. Green coke can also
be used as fuel. The most common types of coke are: Sponge coke. Sponge coke is
named for its sponge-like appearance. It is produced from feeds having low to moderate
asphaltene content. Furthermore, Needle coke. This coke has a needle-like structure and
is made from feed having no asphaltene contents such as decant oils from FCC. It is
used to make expensive graphite electrodes for the steel industry. Next is shot coke.
This coke is an undesirable product and is produced when feedstock asphaltene content
is high and/or when the drum temperature is too high.

6. Refer the fluid coking process flow diagram and explain.

Based on the process diagram, the process of fluid coking are as follows:

 Heated by the produced coke

 Cracking reactions occur inside the heater and the fluidized-bed reactor.
 The fluid coke is partially formed in the heater.
 Hot coke slurry from the heater is recycled to the fluid reactor to provide the heat
required for the cracking reactions.
 Fluid coke is formed by spraying the hot feed on the already-formed coke particles.
 Reactor temperature is about 520°C, and the conversion into coke is immediate, with
complete disorientation of the crystallites of product coke.
 The burning process in fluid coking tends to concentrate the metals, but it does not
reduce the sulphur content of the coke.
 The residuum is cooled by distributing it as a thin film of liquid on the outside of the hot
coke particles
 7. What is Flexicoking? Compare with fluid coking.
 Flexicoking process integrates conventional fluid coking with coke gasification process
for upgrading heavy residues.The gasification is effected by the addition of air and
steam to a fluidized solids vessels. Plus,the gaseous products are subsequently treated
to produce a clean fuel gas.

Fluid coking Flexicoking

The operating condition is 510-5200C for The operating condition is 520oC

heating and 10 psig
Less coke yield Eliminate the coke production

Higher yield of light end Convert heavy residue to lighter more

valuable product

Problems

In the operation of coil visbreaker, if a layer of carbon of 0.5 cm thickness is

deposited on the inside of a 10 cm diameter coil with an 800 m length. The coke is
combusted by air in the coil and the heat is removed by introducing steam at 400 oC
and exiting at 700 oC. Calculate the flow rate of steam for 50 h of cleaning time.
Take Cs = 1 kcal/kg oC; Density of coke = 1200 kg/m3; heat of combustion of
carbon= 8000 kcal/kg and heat of combustion of sulphur 2218 kcal/kg. Assume the
coke contains 90% carbon and 10% sulphur.