Narjes Abul
Petroleum Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research
Kuwait
Title: Regeneration of a Spent Hydroprocessing Catalyst by In-situ Non-Oxidative Treatment Methods
Biography
Biography: Narjes Abul
Abstract
Investigation on the life cycle of hydrotreating catalysts in pilot plant unit are focused on the end of run and fouling problems. The one of the non conventional way of regenerating the spent catalyst is using in-situ non-oxidative regeneration of spent hydroprocessing catalyst from Kuwaiti refinery was studied. The non-oxidative regeneration treatments, including 1) washing the spent catalyst with a straight run gas oil (SRGO) at 150 and 200 oC respectively, 2) accelerated solvent extraction technique and 3) regeneration at temperature 450o C under 50 bar using H2 diluted with 0.4% of H2S. The spent catalyst and regenerated catalysts were characterized by elemental analysis, solid-state 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) analysis and Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) techniques. The regenerated catalysts were evaluated with a feedstock containing 30 vol % of coker gas oil and 70 vol % of straight run gas oil in a microreactor system. Three type of catalysts are loaded for comparison of their activity test: fresh catalyst and oxidative and non-oxidative regenerated catalysts. The results indicate that in-situ non-oxidative regeneration is able to regenerate the spent hydroprocessing catalysts under similar operation conditions of the refinery. This treatment overcomes the disadvantages of the oxidative regeneration method.