Integrated fluid catalytic cracking and alkylation process

An integrated fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and alkylation process comprising:

• contacting a hydrotreated heavy hydrocarbon feedstock with an FCC catalyst in a fluidized reactor zone at effective conditions to produce an FCC effluent comprising light olefins and a range of hydrocarbons;
• separating the FCC effluent in a separation zone to obtain at least a C4-rich hydrocarbons stream comprising isobutane and 1-butene, a light cycle oil stream, a gasoline stream comprising aromatics, and a propylene stream;
• contacting the C4-rich hydrocarbons stream in an alkylation reaction zone with an alkylation catalyst under effective conditions to alkylate isobutane and 1-butene to produce a reaction product mixture comprising dimethylhexanes and C9+ hydrocarbons;
• separating the reaction product mixture into a dimethylhexanes-rich stream and a C9+ hydrocarbons-rich stream;
• contacting the dimethylhexanes-rich stream in an aromatization zone with a dehydrocyclization catalyst under an effective conditions to produce a dehydrocyclization effluent stream comprising xylenes;
• introducing the dehydrocyclization effluent stream and at least a first portion of the gasoline stream to an aromatics separation zone to obtain a xylenes-rich stream and an alkylate stream comprising isoheptane and isooctane;
• mixing the alkylate stream with at least a second portion of the gasoline stream;
• mixing at least a portion of the light cycle oil stream with the C9+ hydrocarbons-rich stream and recycling this mixed stream to the fluidized reactor zone;
• and
• recovering the propylene stream.