Mesoporous ZSM-5 for steam enhanced catalytic cracking of crude oil

Abstract

A process for upgrading a hydrocarbon feed includes contacting the hydrocarbon feed with steam in the presence of a cracking catalyst at reaction conditions sufficient to cause at least a portion of hydrocarbons in the hydrocarbon feed to undergo one or more cracking reactions to produce a steam catalytic cracking effluent comprising light olefins, light aromatic compounds, or both. The cracking catalyst is hierarchical mesoporous ZSM-5 zeolite. The hierarchical mesoporous ZSM-5 zeolite is made by providing a starting ZSM-5 zeolite, disintegrating the a portion of the starting ZSM-5 in the presence of a surfactant using sodium hydroxide, and then recrystallizing the zeolite constituents in the presence of the surfactant to produce recrystallized ZSM-5 zeolite. The recrystallized ZSM-5 zeolite is then recovered and calcined to produce the hierarchical mesoporous ZSM-5 zeolite.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.