Thermal cracking of canola oil in a continuously operating pilot plant

Europe’s petroleum refining industry is challenged by increasing middle distillate demands and stagnating gasoline markets. In addition, politics enforce a step-by-step substitution of crude oil products by renewable energy sources. In the long term new technologies are needed to cope with this situation. FCC is a well-established refinery process. Valuable products are gaseous olefins, high-octane gasoline as well as LCO. LCO can be used as diesel blend, but consists of high amounts of aromatics at common operating conditions. Vegetable oils have proven to be well-suited alternative feedstocks for FCC. Due to their chemical composition, mild thermal cracking may be sufficient to produce high yields of middle distillates. Various studies using discontinuous reactors confirm this assumption (1). Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract