Add a Guard Bed and increase capacity economically
CLG's Upflow Reactor
(UFR) process enables refiners to increase capacity
or improve product quality from a fixed bed
RDS reactor. Like
OCR,
UFR is an
up flow guard-bed reactor that is added to the processing scheme before the
fixed bed RDS unit.
However, it is less expensive to implement than
OCR because
it does not include the onstream catalyst replacement transfer system.
When adding a UFR reactor,
refiners can increase feed throughput and/ or process
heavier feeds with higher levels of contaminant metals while maintaining excellent
product qualities. UFR provides lower
pressure drop increase across the reactor
loop than that which would be realized if a traditional down flow fixed bed
reactor were added. Consequently, capacity of the system can be increased by
as much as 50%.
Capacity of RDS units increases significantly when they are operated in conjunction with UFR unit.
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The principle advantages of the UFR are:
- low pressure drop, no need to change out recycle compressors
- low plugging tendency due to the slightly expanded catalyst bed
- opportunity to increase capacity as much as 50% in limited plot space
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UFR is the most effective way
to revamp an existing unit at minimum cost.
If you want to process heavier feeds in the future, the
OCR catalyst transfer
system can be economically added. UFR
provides the refiner with the greatest
flexibility to meet future processing needs.
The benefits of UFR include:
- ability to process less expensive heavy, high metals feedstocks
- prevention of guard-bed plugging problems
- ability to increase feed rate due to the low pressure drop across the
reactor
- ability to add catalyst transfer system later
- longer life of downstream fixed bed catalyst