Experimental Study & Modeling of Coke Formation in Pyrolysis of Naphtha

The aim of this study is to develop a coking model for the pyrolysis of naphtha that can be used to predict the coking rate from a given naphtha sample with commercial indices. For this purpose, a computer control pilot plant system designed and assembled, for studying the pyrolysis reaction kinetics, coke formation and different advance control algorithms. Experiments on the thermal cracking of naphtha were carried out in a tubular reactor under conditions as close as possible to those in the industrial operations. Developing a coking model requires a suitable model of thermal cracking reactor based on a reliable kinetic model. To obtain reliable results these models shall be solved simultaneously. Therefore, a complete reaction network was used. Then it was verified and tuned by pilot plant data. In the second series of experiments, coke formation during pyrolysis of naphtha in pilot plant system was studied. For better estimation of coking parameters, the experiments were carried out at different operating conditions.