Review of Research Related to Fluid Cokers

Fluid coking is a thermal conversion process that uses a conventional two-vessel circulating fluidized bed to convert heavy hydrocarbon feeds to lighter products. The technology was developed in the 1950s and since then has been used commercially around the world to upgrade heavy oils from various sources. Research work has been summarized related to all aspects of the fluid coking process, including reaction fundamentals, bed hydrodynamics, liquid distribution and jet–bed interaction, mixing of solid particles and agglomerates, mixing of vapors, control of the particle size, cleaning of the vapor stream in the scrubber, cleaning of the cold coke in the stripper, process monitoring, coke transfer lines, and the burner. The fluid coking process involves complex interactions between fluidized bed hydrodynamics, liquid feed injection, and reaction kinetics, and research tools that can take into account all of these interacting variables are requited to test methods to optimize the process. Fluid cokers can process many different types of feeds, and future applications may include blending and co-processing a variety of feedstocks ranging from waste plastics, pyrolytic bio-oil, and off-spec vegetable oils with heavy oil. The findings from this summary are also relevant for other applications that inject liquid into fluidized beds, such as the fluid catalytic cracking process, olefin polymerization cooled by liquid injection, granulators, and coaters.