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• Please share an article on processing of used engine oil distillate through Hydroprocessing. How long the catalyst lasts? Do we need to put metal trap separtely?

  Oct-2023

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Answers

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• Marcio Wagner da Silva, Petrobras, marciows@petrobras.com.br

  This topic is receiving increasing attention nowadays dragged by the necessity to improve the circularity potential of the crude oil derivatives. The hydroprocessing route of used lubricating oil re-refining tends to grow in the next few years due to the toxic byproducts generated by the other routes like the Meiken process.

  Regarding the available hydroprocessing technologies there is the Hylube process developed and commercialized by UOP Company. In this process are applied two hydroprocessing reactors under pressure around 60 bar, the first reactor is act like a catalytic guard reactor where the porosity of the catalyst is designed to retain impurities, especially metals, and protect the second reactor which is responsible for the most part of the hydroconversion of the feed. Due to the characteristics of the used lubricating oils, it is expected that any hydroprocessing unit dedicated to process this feed rely on metal traps to protect the active catalyst and ensure an adequate lifecycle to the processing unit.

  Interesting and complete references about this topic are the book Refining Used Lubricating Oils by James Speight and Douglas Exall and the book Design Aspects of Used Lubricating Oil Re-refining by Firas Awaja and Dumitru Pavel.

   

  Oct-2023