Catalytic hydrocoking of residua

#The present invention represents an improvement over the invention described in commonly assigned application Ser. No. 080,832 filed Oct. 1, 1979.

#Commonly assigned application Ser. No. 080,830, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a coking process wherein a mixture of a shale oil material and a petroleum residuum is used as the coker feed. As pointed out in that disclosure, it has been found that the yields of liquid product obtained when such a mixture is used as the feed is greater than would have been expected.

#In commonly assigned application Ser. No. 080,832, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, an improvement over the invention described in Ser. No. 080,830 is disclosed. In accordance with this improvement, the yields of liquid product can be further enhanced by including in the feed mixture a hydrogen transfer catalyst, a hydrogenation catalyst and/or a hydrocracking catalyst.

#Whole shale oil was coked in a mini-coker while the gas, usually hydrogen, was fed to the coker. In Examples 1 to 3, three different hydrocracking catalysts were included in the feed mixture. In Comparative Examples A and B, no catalyst was included in the system. The identity of the catalysts and the results obtained are set forth in the following Table II.

#TABLE II __________________________________________________________________________ EFFECT OF HYDROCRACKING CATALYST Feed: Whole Shale Oil Comp A Comp B 1 2 3 __________________________________________________________________________ Example Catalyst* None None 2.9% Ni 4.1% Ni 2.7% Ni 17.5% Mo 13.3% Mo 50.3% W Wt. % -- -- 1.00 1.00 1.00 Suspending Gas N.sub.2 H.sub.2 H.sub.2 H.sub.2 H.sub.2 Products Wt. % Liquid (C.sub.4.sup.30) 79.17 77.42 82.04 84.05 84.56 Wt. % Coke (0 VCM)** 10.15 9.31 8.65 6.43 9.93 Products, % S Liquid 0.65 0.68 0.63 0.61 0.65 Coke 0.49 0.47 2.27 0.80 0.43 Liquid + Coke 0.63 0.65 0.86 0.64 0.62 Products, % N Liquid 2.21 2.48 2.22 2.26 2.26 Coke 3.77 3.82 3.73 3.32 3.50 Liquid + Coke 2.42 2.69 2.43 2.41 2.43 __________________________________________________________________________ *Supported on alumina. **Catalyst weight not included.

#From the foregoing, it can be seen that all three hydrocracking catalysts show increased liquid product yields when hydrogen is added. Without a catalyst, hydrogen had no beneficial effect. None of the catalysts had any significant effect on product sulfur and nitrogen.