Simulation and Unit Cost of Using Fluid Catalytic Cracking of Soyabeans Oil for the Production of Bio-Gasoline

Abstract

The fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) procedure has been in the refinery for a long time. Feedstocks and process routes have determined the development of the production of gasoline over time. However the technique has not been applied to process bio-feedstock. A new feedstock (soyabean oil) is being investigated here and compared with the product from VGO because of the absence of the technology in Nigeria. The fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) was designed such that a feed temperature is raised to produce conventional cuts from soyabean oil with similar cuts from VGO. The procedure followed included taking an assumption for adiabatic condition around the reactor for the process modelling. Next the simulation was run to crack soyabean oil to produce gasoline and LCO was another major fraction of the fractionated soyabean oil. This innovation will open up an outstanding entrepreneurship and a significant change to the view of a FCCU as made strictly for petroleum processes. The acceptance in mimicking commercial FCC operation to produce similar cut from petroleum has been successfully tested by 26 licenced pilot plant industries. The feasibility study for the start-up of this industry indicated that the IRR is excellent and the productivity index is greater than one. This makes the establishment of such industry economically relevant in Nigeria.