MODELLING AND SIMULATION OF A REFINERY FLUID CATALYTIC CRACKING UNIT RISER

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this work is to model and simulate the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) riser of a refinery having Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) Kaduna as a study. The unit’s operation is cracking of heavy gasoil (VGO) to light weight oils in the presence of catalyst (zeolite). The method employed involves the collection of operating conditions, feed stock stream analysis data from the refinery which was processed in order to obtain mass fractions of the representative specie involved in the cracking reactions. A model equation was obtained and simulated using Comsol Multiphysics software. Furthermore mass and energy balance were carried out. The results of the simulation of the model showed a good agreement with the experimental results. In addition to gases and oils, gasoline obtained was 54% by weight fraction. The result obtained from the simulation was close to the data obtained from KRPC as well as results from other researchers. Thus the model obtained can be used for the simulation of crudes other than the Nigerian crude and the computational software used is recommended for the optimization of process units.