Filtration Of Hydrotreater Feed Streams For Catalyst Process Protection

Hydrotreating, catalytic hydro-desulfurization, is a refinery process that effectively reduces impurities such as sulfur in petroleum fractions that are obtained from the distillation of crude oil. The process also improves gas oil quality by reducing nitrogen, oxygen, metals and waxes, providing important protection for the catalysts in reformers, cat crackers, and hydrocrackers. To prevent fouling of expensive hydrotreater catalysts, filtration of the petroleum fractions, to reduce solid and semi-solid contaminants, is essential. The benefits of efficient gas oil filtration include:

• Reduction of catalyst bed fouling,
• Avoiding gas oil flow rate reduction caused by increasing catalyst bed differential pressure
• Extended catalyst service life, and
• Reduced heat exchanger fouling

Refiners can achieve efficient hydrotreater performance, increase production, and realize significant maintenance cost savings by using efficient filtration systems. This Customer Application Brief (CAB) provides filtration recommendations that, when implemented, will achieve optimal hydrotreater performance.