A Path to Co-processing Chemical Recycling Products
As the world grapples with the challenges of plastic waste, advanced chemical recycling is a promising solution. This innovative approach is projected to grow significantly in the coming years and decades, enhancing the circularity of plastics, reducing plastic pollution, and decreasing our dependency on fossil crude.
An important question about advanced chemical recycling is how the industry will use or process the unconventional feedstocks, such as those derived from plastic waste streams in refinery processes. For instance, as companies study pyrolysis technologies, they also need to evaluate the means of processing the plastics-derived pyrolysis oil (PDPO), which requires secondary conversion in existing refining or petrochemical assets for valorization.
At refineries worldwide, these feedstocks are being evaluated from economic, regulatory, and environmental perspectives to ensure their viability and sustainability.
Leveraging the Flexibility of Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units
The fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit is one of the most flexible units in a crude oil refinery, making it an ideal processing unit for plastics-derived feedstocks like pyrolysis oil. Its unique properties allow for significant adjustments to unit operation and yield patterns within short periods. Daily catalyst additions enable catalyst optimization while the unit remains operational.
Severe catalyst deactivation can be proactively mitigated by increasing catalyst additions within the refinery’s catalyst management strategy. Long-term deactivation factors will require catalyst reformulation in collaboration with the FCC catalyst supplier. Any significant feedstock change necessitates a thorough risk assessment to understand its impact on unit operation, conversion, yield patterns, catalyst inventory, and downstream processing.
Collaboration Is Key
By fully understanding the yield structure and addressing associated challenges, refineries can unlock the potential of waste-derived feedstocks, achieving both financial and environmental benefits. Against this backdrop, collaboration is key to accelerating the assessment of challenges and opportunities that arise with the energy transition and developing circular value chains.
REPSOL and Grace collaborated to investigate the crackability and yield structure from catalytic cracking of two different plastics-derived pyrolysis oils in pilot plant equipment. The resulting yield delta to a reference Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO) sample allows an initial assessment of yield shifts but also indicates areas that might need more attention in a commercial trial, like oxygen in the PDPO or the effect on gasoline quality.
Read Petroleum Technology Quarterly to learn more about how the combination of REPSOL and Grace competencies in the evaluation of two plastics-derived pyrolysis led to a successful collaboration to assess opportunities and challenges associated with the processing of advanced chemical recycling feed streams in the refining industry.