“Gasoline hart” of Refinery, transform lower feeds in valuable products with an

increase in volumetric flow rate, meaning that for each 1 (one) m3/h of feed shall
result 1.1 m3/h of products – roughly 10% and for 100$ / m3 of feed come out
150$/m3 of products!

FCC main equipment:

1. Air Blower: centrifugal or axial type with turbine / electric motor, need to
supply 250-550 Nm3 of air per m3 of feed with check valve on discharge who need to
protect the machine for regenerator catalyst backflow, remember that in Regenerator
the operating temperature could arrive at +700C, internals shall be SS

2. Regenerator operating pressure 2.8-3.6 barg & 690-750C need to burn the coke
deposits on catalyst:

C + O2 — CO2 + Q (heat) = 7860 kcal/kg

C + ½ O2 — CO + Q (heat) = 2200 kcal/kg
CO + ½ O2 — CO2 + Q (heat)

Note that total combustion of coke to CO2 could be started by adding excess air or
a special promoter, do not exceed 2% vol. of O2 in flue gases.

Remember that working with total combustion the coke deposits on catalyst shall be
minimum, the T highest meaning that the catalyst circulation rate.

3. Reactor: so called “riser” a vertical tube where the fresh feed is well mix with
regenerated catalyst, also steam is added to improve the mixing and atomization
with operating pressure of 1.5-2.5 barg & 525-560C, transform the low value feed in
desire products by various operation modes: max gasoline, max olefins or
distillates

4. Slide valves are gate type with main goal to control the catalyst flow rate and
due to catalyst fine particles presence, special construction is required with /
without steam purging to avoid catalyst accumulation - the main issue is to resist
to higher thermal expansion when becomes in contact with hot catalyst, meaning that
the vendor shall proper design the clearances

5. Cyclones to remove/recover the catalyst particles from reactor effluent and flue
gases using the centrifugal forces & high weight difference between catalyst
particles and gas effluent

6. Orifice chamber is a vertical column with orifice trays with main purpose to
reduce the flue gases velocity and pressure drop to near atmospheric value – from
total pressure drop of flue gases 2/3 is lost in orifice chamber the remaining in
the slide valve upstream

7. Main Column with 38-42 real trays and different sections with own efficiency is
used to separate the reactor effluent in gases, gasoline, light & heavy cycle oil
and the remaining heavy portion as column bottom product, with 1.0 barg & 120C at
top and 2.0 barg/363C in bottom. It is worth to mention the disc & donut section
from column bottom where the huge heat transfer take place by returning the cooled
bottom product above top disc, the mentioned internals are suitable for plugging by
catalyst fines and/or coke service.