Mechanistically informed pathway kinetic model for the Fischer-Tropsch wax hydrocracking

Production of synthetic liquid fuels via Fischer-Tropsch (FT)-based technologies is a valuable way to obtain clean fuels from several raw materials. The hydrocracking process to which the waxes must be subjected has the aim to increase the yield in middle distillates and to improve the fuel cold flow properties. In this paper a mechanistically informed pathways-level kinetic model for the hydrocracking process is proposed. The model, generated by means of the INGen software, is a molecular pathway-type model that can be considered a good compromise between a detailed enough description of the system and a certain degree of simplicity that allows the application of this kind of model to complex feedstocks such as those typical of FT wax hydrocracking. In this case it may be necessary to further reduce the model equations and thus a proposal of a relumping strategy for the obtained reaction network is also shown.