Systems for treating a hydrocarbon feed

Abstract

Systems for treating a hydrocarbon feed to produce a total product are described herein. The system includes an upstream contacting system and a downstream contacting system. The upstream contacting system includes one or more catalysts. The hydrocarbon feed has a viscosity of at least 100 cSt at 37.8° C. Contact of the hydrocarbon feed with one or more of the catalysts produces the total product. The total product includes a crude product having a viscosity at 37.8° C. of at most 50% of the viscosity of the first feed at 37.8° C. The downstream contacting system is coupled to the upstream contacting system and configured to receive the first feed. The downstream contacting system includes a cracking unit and / or a deasphalting unit.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION [0001] The present application claims the benefit of the filing date of U.S. Provisional patent application Ser. No. 60 / 850,109 filed Oct. 6, 2006, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention generally relates to systems, methods, and catalysts for treating hydrocarbon feeds, and to compositions that can be produced using such systems, methods, and catalysts. More particularly, certain embodiments described herein relate to systems, methods, and catalysts for conversion of a hydrocarbon feed to a total product, wherein the total product includes a crude product that is a liquid mixture at 25° C. and 0.101 MPa and has one or more properties that are changed relative to the respective property of the hydrocarbon feed. DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART [0003] Crudes that have one or more unsuitable properties that do not allow the crudes to be economically transported, or processed using conventional facil...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0035] In some embodiments, the invention provides a method of producing a crude product that includes providing one or more catalysts to a contacting zone, wherein at least one of the catalysts is a Column 6 metal catalyst, wherein the Column 6 metal catalyst is produced by the method comprising: combining one or more metals from Column 6 of the Periodic Table and/or one or more compounds of one or more metals from Column 6 of the Periodic Table with a support to form a mixture; and heating the mixture to a temperature of at most 200° C. to form a dried Column 6 metal catalyst; contacting a hydrocarbon feed with the dried Column 6 metal catalyst to produce a total product that includes the crude product, wherein the crude product is a liquid mixture at 25° C. and 0.101 MPa; wherein the hydrocarbon feed has a residue content of at least 0.1 grams per gram of hydrocarbon feed, and wherein contact of the hydrocarbon feed with the dried catalyst at least partially sulfides the catalyst; and controlling contacting conditions at a partial pressure of hydrogen of at least 3 MPa and a temperature of at least 200° C. such that the crude product has a residue content of at most 90% of the residue content of the hydrocarbon feed.

[0036] In some embodiments, the invention provides a method of producing a crude product that includes contacting a hydrocarbon feed with one or more catalysts to produce a total product that includes the crude product, wherein the crude product is a liquid mixture at 25° C. and 0.101 MPa; the hydrocarbon feed has a residue content of at least 0.1 grams per gram of hydrocarbon feed; and at least one of the catalysts has at most 0.1 grams, per gram of catalyst, of: one or more metals from Column 6 of the Periodic Table and/or one or more compounds of one or more metals from Column 6 of the Periodic Table; and one or more metals from Columns 9-10 of the Periodic Table and/or one or more compounds of one or more metals from Columns 9-10 of the Periodic Table, and a pore size distribution with a median pore diameter between 50 Å and 120 Å; and controlling contacting conditions at a partial pressure of hydrogen of at least 3 MPa and a temperature of at least 200° C. to produce the crude product, the crude product having a residue content of at most 90% of the residue content of the hydrocarbon feed.

[0037] In some embodiments, the invention provides a method of producing a crude product that includes contacting a crude feed with one or more catalysts to produce a total product that includes the crude product, wherein the crude product is a liquid mixture at 25° C. and 0.101 MPa; the crude feed having a residue content of at least 0.1 grams per gram of crude feed; and wherein at least one of the catalysts has, per gram of catalyst, at least

Problems solved by technology

Disadvantaged crudes with a relatively high TAN may contribute to corrosion of metal components during transporting and / or processing of the disadvantaged crudes.

The use of corrosion-resistant metal often involves significant expense, and thus, the use of corrosion-resistant metal in existing equipment may not be desirable.

The use of corrosion inhibitors may negatively affect equipment used to process the crudes and / or the quality of products produced from the crudes.

Disadvantaged crudes often contain relatively high levels of residue.

Disadvantaged crudes having such high levels of residue tend to be difficult and expensive to transport and / or process using conventional facilities.

During processing of such crudes, metal contaminants and / or compounds of metal contaminants, may deposit on a surface of the catalyst or in the void volume of the catalyst.

Such deposits may cause a decline in the activity of the catalyst.

It may be costly to regenerate the catalytic activity of a catalyst contaminated with coke.

High temperatures used during regeneration may also diminish the activity of the catalyst and / or cause the catalyst to deteriorate.

Moreover, the metals in metal salts of organic acids may cause rapid deactivation of catalysts.

Organically bound heteroatoms may, in some situations, have an adverse effect on catalysts.

Treatment facilities that process disadvantaged crudes with an oxygen content of at least 0.002 grams of oxygen per gram of disadvantaged crude may encounter problems during processing.

Organic oxygen compounds, when heated during processing, may form higher oxidation compounds (for example, ketones and / or acids formed by oxidation of alcohols, and / or acids formed by oxidation of ethers) that are difficult to remove from the treated crude and / or may corrode / contaminate equipment during processing and cause plugging in transportation lines.

Basic nitrogen compounds may have adverse effects on catalysts used in cracking processes, thus reducing the efficiency of the cracking operation.

When processing of hydrogen deficient hydrocarbons, consistent quantities of hydrogen generally need to be added, particularly if unsaturated fragments resulting from cracking processes are produced.

Hydrogen is costly to produce and / or costly to transport to treatment facilities.

Disadvantaged crudes also tend to exhibit instability during processing in conventional facilities.

Crude instability tends to result in phase separation of components during processing and / or formation of undesirable by-products (for example, hydrogen sulfide, water, and carbon dioxide).

Conventional processes often lack the ability to change a selected property in a disadvantaged crude without also significantly changing other properties in the disadvantaged crude.

For example, conventional processes often lack the ability to significantly reduce TAN in a disadvantaged crude while, at the same time, only changing by a desired amount the content of certain components (such as sulfur or metal contaminants) in the disadvantaged crude.

Adding diluent, however, generally increases costs of treating disadvantaged crudes due to the costs of diluent and / or increased costs to handle the disadvantaged crudes.

Addition of diluent to a disadvantaged crude may, in some situations, decrease stability of such crude.

In sum, disadvantaged crudes generally have undesirable properties (for example, relatively high residue content, a tendency to become unstable during treatment, and / or a tendency to consume relatively large amounts of hydrogen during treatment).

Other undesirable properties include relatively high amounts of undesirable components (for example, residue, organically bound heteroatoms, metal contaminants, metals in metal salts of organic acids, and / or organic oxygen compounds).

Such properties tend to cause problems in conventional transportation and / or treatment facilities, including increased corrosion, decreased catalyst life, process plugging, and / or increased usage of hydrogen during treatment.

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