Modelling Catalyst Deactivation by External Coke Deposition during Fluid Catalytic Cracking

Although the Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is an economic important process, simulation of its kinetics is rather empirical-mainly it is a consequence of the complex interactions among operating variables and the complex kinetics that take place. A crucial issue is the inevitable catalyst reversible deactivation, consequence of both, coke (by-product) deposition on the catalyst surface (external) and inside the catalytic zeolite (internal). In order to tackle this problem, two main proposals to evaluate deactivation rate by coking have been extensively applied, both use a probability distribution function called "the negative exponential function"-one of them uses the time that catalyst has been in the reacting stream (named Time-on-Stream), and the other is related to the coke amount on/inside the catalyst (denoted as Coke-on-Catalyst). These two deactivation models can be unified by tracking catalyst activity as function of the decrease on effective diffusivity due to pore occlusion (external) by coke-this situation leads to an increase of Thiele modules and consequently a decrease of the effectiveness factor of each reaction. This tracking of catalyst activity incorporates, implicitly, rates of reaction and transport phenomena taking place in the catalyst pores and is therefore phenomenological rather than statistical. In this work, the activity profiles predicted previously are reproduced at MAT laboratory reactor. The same approach is used to model an industrial riser and the results are in agreement with previous reports.