(584v) Estimation of Kinetics Parameters Using Pilot Plant Data for the Prediction of Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel Reactor Performance

The gasoil (Diesel) hydrodesulphurization (HDS) is a key process in petroleum refineries that produces Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel (ULSD) for transportation. The ULSD is expected to produce diesel fuel that meets the sulphur specifications to meet environmental regulations. However, due to the refractory nature of sulfur compound removal of less than 50 ppm sulphur(S) is considered difficult. Considering the need of subject and the specified fuel demand a pilot plant unit with fixed bed reactor is used in this investigation for hydrotreating the straight run gasoil fraction. Two commercial alumina-supported cobalt–molybdenum (CoMo) hydrodesulphurization catalysts were tested in order to optimize best operating conditions at industrial practice particularly focusing on the presence of the refractory S compounds as well as their reaction kinetic parameters.

Hence develop a kinetic model for a reactor, which can be utilized to predict the performance of the reactor during operation and estimate maximum benefit of the reactor internals. A kinetic model based on n^th reaction order with a limited pilot plant data is used to estimate kinetic parameters for the two different CoMo catalysts tested in pilot plant. A parameter estimation technique with explicit models was used to determine the kinetic parameters and their highest posterior density intervals. The technique is based on minimization of the sum of the square errors (SSE) between the experimental and predicted concentrations of sulphur compound in the products. We present results and comparison for the catalysts investigated in this work.