(583l) Kinetic and Reactor Modeling for Continuous Catalytic Reforming

Naphtha catalytic reforming is a very important process for producing high octane gasoline, aromatic products and hydrogen in petroleum and petrochemical industries. To optimize the existing units an appropriate mathematical model is needed. The naphtha feedstock has a large number of compounds with the number of carbons ranging from one to twelve. Thus, a detailed kinetic model considering all the components and reactions is complex. Lumping models are used to group the compounds in terms of isomers of the same nature. As a consequence, these are capable of describing the relationships between the process variables and the reaction rates. A kinetic and reactor modeling of commercial naphtha continuous catalytic reforming process is proposed to predict temperature profile and products composition. The model is based on paraffins, naphthenes and aromatics (PNA) analysis and reformer inlet temperature (WAIT). Kinetics involves 25 pseudo-first-order rate reactions and all parameters are estimated from industrial data. The reactor modeling describes four radial flow reactors, a perfect plug flow behavior is assumed due to the fact that under typical reformer operating conditions, radial and axial dispersion effects were found to be negligible. Simulation results demonstrate that agreements between model predictions and actual plant data are satisfactory. Application of the proposed model to an optimization study could lead to the identification of suitable operating conditions, in order to obtain the maximum profit.