US 4,732,665 AGranted

High severity catalytic reforming process

AssigneeUop LLC

InventorsRichard W. Bennett, Paul R. Cottrell, Norman L. Gilsdorf, Michael D. Winfield

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Abstract

An improved catalytic reforming process. The process is operated at high severity in order to obtain a reformate product having an enhanced octane rating. Higher octane reformate is required to compensate for the reduction or total elimination of lead-based additives used in motor gasoline for increasing octane rating, since reformate is a primary component of motor gasoline. High severity operation results in the formation of quantities of polycyclic aromatic compounds whose presence is highly undesirable. These compounds are removed from the vaporous products of the catalytic reforming process by adsorption on an appropriate material. It was totally unexpected to find that these very high molecular weight compounds are present in vapor streams comprised of hydrogen and light normally-gaseous hydrocarbons such as methane, ethane, and propane.

Claims3

Dependent claims

A high-severity catalytic reforming process comprising:

(a) passing a mixture comprising a catalytic reforming feed stream and a recycle stream into a catalytic reforming reaction zone which is maintained at high-severity reforming conditions;
(b) cooling an effluent stream comprising hydrogen and hydrocarbonaceous catalytic reforming reaction products which is withdrawn from said reaction zone;
(c) passing said cooled effluent stream into a vapor-liquid separation zone and recovering therefrom a liquid stream comprising hydrocarbons and a hydrogen-rich gas stream;
(d) passing said hydrogen-rich gas stream through an adsorption zone wherein said gas is contacted with a treating material which removes polycyclic aromatic compounds from said gas stream, said compounds remaining in the adsorption zone;
(e) mixing a portion of said hydrogen-rich gas stream, which is said recycle stream, with said feed stream to form said charge stock mixture and withdrawing the balance of said hydrogen-rich gas stream, which is denoted as net hydrogen, from the catalytic reforming area, all of said hydrogen-rich gas stream being substantially free of polycyclic aromatic compounds;
and
(f) fractionating said liquid stream and recovering an overhead product comprising light hydrocarbons and a bottoms product comprising reformate.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.