Hydrocracking Boscan Heavy Oil with Unimodal and Bimodal Catalysts

Publisher Summary Experimental data have shown that diffusion in hydrocracking catalyst pores affects the conversion of heavy oils and bitumens. Other experimental data have shown that conversion can be improved by altering the chemical composition of catalysts that have comparable surface areas and pore dimensions. This indicates that both surface reaction and pore diffusion affect conversion during residuum hydrocracking, although neither controls nor dominates. Bimodal commercial catalysts for hydrocracking residua contain both mesopores (MEP) that provide surface area for reaction and macropores (MAP) that provide large pore cross sections for enhanced diffusion rates. This chapter explains vanadium hydrodemetallization using the catalysts of various pore geometries.