Kinetic Modeling and Hydrocarbon Mixture Properties Characterisation in Coking Operations

Refinery thermal processes are diffused all over the world, because of their relatively simple configuration and operating flexibility compared to catalytic processes. In particular Delayed Coking is coherent with the growing demand for transportation fuels, more stringent legislation and the opportunity for significant improvement in refinery profit margins. The coking capacity has in fact increased by about 50 million tons from 1999 to 2005 (Valyavin et al., 2007). The development of extended kinetic models can help to accurately describe these processes (characterised by liquid phase pyrolysis) and can be useful for their better description. Such modeling tools are also convenient supports for the production planning, the optimisation of the process and the operator training. This paper present a detailed, mechanistic model of Delayed Coking process and some results compared with experimental data. Moreover a first approach to fluid- and flexicoking modeling is presented.