The worldwide need for transportation fuel or middle distillates with fuel quality satisfying environmental legislations is growing. Amongst various technologies, the catalytic hydrotreating process (HDT) has the potential for increasing the yield of distillate cuts while simultaneously reducing the concentration of contaminants, mainly S, N, V, Ni and Asphaltene. In all existing refineries, hydrotreating processes are implemented upon oil fractions followed by distillation and not on the whole crude oil before the distillation. The process of whole crude oil hydrotreating is a newchallenge and a new technology that has not been reported by anyone else except us in the last 24 months. Our proposed process showed greater yield of desirable middle distillates compared to the yield produced by conventional methods and, consequently, a decrease in the yield of less-desirable reduced crude residue (RCR).

Kinetic parameters for the HDT reactions and for the reactions responsible for conversion of crude oil to middle distillates are determined by parameter estimation techniques based on pilot plant experimental data. When the new pilot plant process is scaled up to a large scale process (based on 10,000 bbl/day of

ChE SEMINAR

Breaking the Tradition – Whole Crude Oil Fractionation then Hydrotreating or Whole Crude Oil Hydrotreating then Fractionation?

Prof. I.M. Mujtaba School of Engineering Design & Technology University of Bradford Bradford BD7 1DP, UK Email: I.M.Mujtaba@bradford.ac.uk

Seminar Room Dept. of Chemical Engineering Tuesday April 01, 2014: 04:00 PM

ABSTRACT

crude oil being processed) via process modelling and optimisation, the economic analysis forecasts more than 16% profitability (accounting for both investment cost and operational cost) compared to those obtained for existing processes. In addition it is expected that a further and significant economic benefit will result due to change in flow and fouling (in heat exchangers) characteristics of the new RCR fuel obtained by the new process.

Iqbal M. Mujtaba is a Professor of Computational Process Engineering in the School of Engineering, Design & Technology at the University of Bradford. He obtained his BSc Eng and MSc Eng degrees in Chemical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET) in 1983 and 1984 respectively and obtained his PhD from Imperial College London in 1989. He is a Fellow of the IChemE, a Chartered Chemical Engineer, and a committee member of the IChemE's Computer Aided Process Engineering Subject Group. He was the Chair of the European Committee for Computers in Chemical Engineering Education from 2010-2013.

Professor Mujtaba leads research into dynamic modelling, simulation, optimisation and control of batch and continuous chemical processes with specific interests in distillation, industrial reactors, refinery processes, desalination and crude oil hydrotreating focusing on energy and water. He has managed several research collaborations and consultancy projects with industry and academic institutions in the UK, Italy, Hungary, Malaysia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. He has published more than 180 technical papers and has delivered more than 50 invited lectures/seminars/short courses around the world. He has supervised 23 PhD students to completion and is currently supervising 4 PhD students. He is the author of 'Batch Distillation: Design & Operation' (text book) published by the Imperial College Press, London, 2004 which is based on his 18 years of research in Batch Distillation.

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