Hydrocracking process and kinetic equation: Effect of the fluoride on the performance of the Ni-Mo catalyst

Abstract

The present paper investigates the fluoride effects on the performance of the Ni-Mo/ASA-Al2O3 catalyst. The Ni-Mo-F0/ASA-Al2O3 and Ni-Mo-F3.6/ASA-Al2O3 catalysts were prepared and characterized using a number of techniques such as BET, XRD, XRF, and NH3-TPD. The performance of the catalysts was investigated in the N-hexadecane hydrocracking, and liquid products were analyzed using gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). Results showed when the fluoride was loaded to the catalysts, the N-hexadecane conversion increase, from 88.44% to 98.83%, and the selectivity of light gas products increase slightly, from 4.64% to 8.14%. Finally, the performance of the Ni-Mo-F3.6/ASA-Al2O3 catalyst was studied in the VGO hydrocracking and discrete lumping kinetic equations of this process were investigated. In this study, the production of the produced oil cuts, diesel, kerosene, naphtha, and gas was formulated and the kinetic constants of the VGO hydrocracking in the presence of the catalyst were calculated using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm.