Industrial Application of Cold Regenerant Recycling Technology in FCC Units: Leading the way in Refining Catalysis

The cold regenerator cycle catalytic cracking (CRC) technology has significant energy-saving effects, optimized product distribution, significantly improved quality, and safe production system operation. Projects using this technology have produced significant economic and environmental benefits after being put into operation, achieving low-carbon operation and green production Li Qunzhu, Chairman of Luoyang Weida Petrochemical Engineering Co., Ltd., is very confident in the economic viability of the technology they developed, which won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2015. In the view of industry experts, this technology has improved the overall level of catalytic cracking (FCC) technology in China, and to some extent, it can be said to have achieved the third transformation of catalytic cracking technology.

The FCC process is the core of China's refining industry and the main means of lightweight heavy oil. With the increasing trend of crude oil degradation and heavy refining, as well as the continuous improvement of the blending ratio of catalytic cracking residue, the quality of gasoline produced using the FCC process has become worse, exacerbating environmental pollution.

From 2009 to 2010, with the continuous rise of crude oil prices and the upgrading of national emission standards, the pressure on energy conservation, consumption reduction, and oil quality upgrading in China's refining industry has become increasingly high. Some small and medium-sized refining enterprises have lost their original technological path, and the complete set of CRC technology and equipment with the characteristics of energy conservation, emission reduction, and low-carbon efficiency has finally ushered in a development opportunity.

Since the introduction of molecular sieve catalysts and riser reactions, FCC technology has become very mature through continuous exploration and improvement. But how to improve the ratio of catalyst to oil, that is, how to solve the global problem of the contradiction between regeneration temperature, feed temperature, reaction temperature, and ratio of catalyst to oil, has always been the direction of research for FCC workers at home and abroad.

Weida Petrochemical Company began researching and developing CRC technology in 2008, aiming to improve the selectivity of FCC reaction, increase light oil yield, reduce gasoline olefins and sulfur content, and build a clean and efficient development model with low energy consumption and emissions.

The CRC project research and development team composed of Li Qunzhu and others has gone through more than ten years of independent research and development, breaking new paths and achieving a series of core technologies and engineering innovations such as reaction processes, key equipment, and optimized control. They have also achieved the world's first set of industrial applications.

The appraisal and argumentation opinions of industry experts such as Academician Jin Yong and Academician Yang Qiye point out that CRC technology adopts mature and reliable cold regeneration agent circulation and control technology, scientifically solving the contradiction between reaction temperature, regeneration temperature, feed temperature, and catalyst oil ratio that currently exists, overcoming the global problem that has troubled the FCC technology community for more than 30 years, and achieving multi zone optimization and optimization control of reaction depth for heavy oil catalytic cracking reaction for the first time.

After the successful development of CRC technology, China National Chemical Oil and Gas Corporation and Guangxi Dongyou Asphalt Co., Ltd. in the overseas sector of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) have gained great economic benefits and accumulated valuable industrial experience by adopting CRC technology for technological transformation.

The operation of industrial devices shows that CRC technology has significant energy-saving and emission reduction effects, which can improve product quality and reduce the concentration of NOx and SOx in flue gas. Compared to existing FC both domestically and internationally