Cat Fines Separation

In order to make petrol or other fuels out of crude oil, refineries work with the catalyst cracking process. So-called “cat fines” (including aluminum and silicon compounds) are used as catalysts and these are then found in the oil. As cat fines are extremely damaging to engines, GEA Westfalia Separator has developed a process by which these substances can be reliably removed from the oil, it being possible to feed certain cat fines straight back into the catalyzing process.

 

GEA Westfalia Separator is not only active in the upstream processes of oil drilling and production. Downstream processes of further processing in refineries also benefit from centrifugal separation technology. The recovery of so-called cat fines from oil residues is an impressive example of this.

 

Cat fines are substances like silicon and aluminum compounds which are required as catalysts in the refining process known as catalytic cracking (“cat cracking”). This method of crude oil treatment splits large, high-boiling hydrocarbon molecules into lots of smaller, lowboiling molecules. It is only this conversion which creates fuels like diesel, petrol or kerosene from crude oil.

 

This process takes place in special cracking towers at a temperature of around 500 °C. After the conversion, there is then a large quantity of cat fines in both the residues of the cracking towers and the distilled crude oil products. These cat fines have a negative impact on the end products, as silicon and aluminum compounds are extremely abrasive. If they get into an engine, this can rapidly lead to the destruction of sensitive components and thus to total failure.

 

GEA Westfalia Separator has developed equipment which allows cat fines to be removed reliably from the oil residues. This system combines clarifiers and decanters with one another. In the first stage, the job of the clarifier is to remove the fine solids from the heavy fuel oil sludge. Once treated in this way, the heavy fuel oil can have a cat fines content of less than 100 ppm. The sludge which leaves the separator is treated by a decanter in the second separation stage.