ABSTRACT
The decreasing demand for heavy fuel oils requires that refiners find ways for converting heavy hydrocarbon feedstocks to higher value mid-distillate products. To increase mid-distillate production, the refiner can choose from several processing options such as hydrocracking, fluid catalytic cracking, and coking. The catalysts were prepared from commercially available porous supports composed of alumina, boria-alumina, magnesia-alumina, silica-alumina, titania-alumina, or Y-zeolite-alumina. The general objective of this work is to identify an mild hydrocracking catalyst which gives a higher conversion level for heavy hydrocarbon feedstocks, especially that fraction of the feedstock that boils 1000 F, while maintaining the same amount of sediment production. The Berty reactor, a type of continuous stirred tank reactor, was used to determine mild hydrocracking activities of the candidate catalysts in a diffusion controlled regime at a low rate of deactivation. After being loaded in thereactor, the catalyst was presulfided and then the reaction was carried out at a single space velocity for 38 hours.
