Accelerated Deactivation of Hydrotreating Catalysts by Coke Deposition

Pilot plant experiments are designed to allow for evaluation of the impact caused by increasing the severity of key operation variables on deactivation of hydrotreating (HDT) catalysts, through accelerated runs performed in short periods of time. One of the main aspects of this work is the use of a kinetic approach in order to observe the impact of accelerated deactivation conditions upon catalyst performances during hydrodesulfurization (HDS), hydrodenitrogenation (HDN), and aromatic hydrogenation (HDA) reactions. This approach allows for evaluation of catalyst deactivation for each of the analyzed reactions. Results obtained with a reference catalyst indicate that the proposed methodology is able to deactivate the catalyst effectively, leading to proper representation of actual industrial deactivation at the end of a catalyst life cycle.