A cape of HDT industrial reactor for middle distillates

Abstract Hydrodesulfurization (HDS) and hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) of middle distillates over a commercial Ni-Mo/γ-Al2O3 has been studied under wide operating conditions of 340–380°C and 38–98 atm. A power law model was presented to each one of those reactions. The parameters of kinetic equations were estimated solving the ordinary differential equations by the fourth order Runge—Kutta—Gill algorithm and Marquardt method for searching of kinetic parameters (kinetic constants as well as the orders of the reactions). An adiabatic diesel hydrotreating trickle-bed reactor packed with the same catalyst was simulated numerically in order to check up the behavior of this specific reaction system. One-dimensional pseudo-homogeneous model was used in this work. For each feed, the mass and energy balance equations were integrated along the length of the catalytic bed using the fourth Runge—Kutta—Gill method. The performance of two industrial reactors was checked. Alternative configurations are proposed in this work, which have advantages compared with conventional HDT commercial reactors.