(460c) Concepts, Requirements, and Applications of Refinery Process Modeling

Petroleum streams have been historically characterized as a series of boiling point fractions. Early refining process models in the 1960 and 1970's were limited to predicting only boiling range yields or simple product qualities due to limitations in the analytical science to characterize petroleum at the molecular level. In reality, these streams are complex mixtures of hydrocarbons containing enormous numbers of distinct molecular species. Despite significant advances in analytical chemistry in recent years, it is still not feasible to identify all molecular components. Nonetheless, models of petroleum refining processes must have a molecular basis to be useful in predicting the molecular composition of products and their physical and quality properties required by new industry specifications. Developing models of such large reacting systems is difficult because of both the scale and the lack of fundamental information. A strategy for solving this seemingly intractable problem is presented.