Modeling, simulation, and parametric sensitivity analysis of a commercial slurry-phase reactor for heavy oil hydrocracking.

Highlights • Hydrocracking and hydrotreating reactions kinetics are based on lumping technique. • The industrial model is validated with the performance of an experimental reactor. • Axial and radial dispersions are used to represent the slurry-phase reactor dynamic's. • Dynamic and steady-state simulations for hydrocracking of heavy oils are presented. • A sensitivity analysis of model parameters and operating conditions is presented. Abstract Modeling and simulation of a commercial size unit for hydrocracking of an atmospheric residue (312 °C+) in a slurry-phase reactor are reported. The model of the industrial reactor is formulated taking into account axial and radial gradients of the state variables: composition and temperature. The mathematical model was partially discretized with finite central differences in the positional derivatives generating a matrix system of ordinary differential equations which was solved by a Runge-Kutta method. The hydrocracking reaction kinetic model is based on lumping technique and hydrotreating reactions kinetics are described by Langmuir-Hinshelwood and power-law approaches. All the intrinsic kinetic parameters and correlations used in the simulations were taken from the literature. Dynamic and steady-state simulations were performed with the objective to find a distribution of composition and temperature in the reactor as a function of time. Also a parametric sensitivity study was elaborated in order to analyze the effects of uncertainties of model parameters in the dynamic and steady-state model responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]