Hydrodesulfrization

“Sulfur Treatment for Diesel Process”

Process Licensor: SHELL

Catalyst Used:

 Most metals catalyze HDS

 Metals which are at the middle of the transition metal series those are most active
 Ruthenium disulfide (RuS2) appears to be the single most active catalyst
 Binary combinations of cobalt and molybdenum are also highly active.
Reactions Involved:

The main chemical reaction occurring is the cleavage of the C-X chemical bond, where C is a
carbon atom and X is a sulfur. The net result of a hydrogenolysis reaction is the formation of C-
H and H-X chemical bonds.
Example:
C2H5SH + H2  C2H6 + H2S
Ethanethiol + Hydrogen Ethane + Hydrogen Sulfide
Process description

The liquid feed is pumped up to the required elevated pressure and is joined by a stream of
hydrogen-rich recycle gas. The resulting liquid-gas mixture is preheated by flowing through a
heat exchanger. The preheated feed then flows through a fired heater where the feed mixture is
totally vaporized and heated to the required elevated temperature.
Then the previous stream enters the reactor and flows through a fixed-bed of catalyst where the
hydrodesulphurization reaction takes place. The hot reaction products are partially cooled by
flowing through the heat exchanger where the reactor feed was preheated in order to supply the
feed with heat and at the same time cools down.
The product stream coming out of the heat exchanger didn't cool down enough so it is further
cooled in a water cooler. The cooled stream flows through the pressure controller (PC) and
undergoes a pressure reduction down to about 3 to 5 atmospheres. The resulting mixture of liquid
and gas enters the gas separator vessel at about 35 °C and 3 to 5 atmospheres of absolute
pressure in order to separate the liquid from the gases produced upon pressure reduction. Then
the hydrogen-rich gas coming from the top of the gas separator vessel is routed through an amine
contactor for removal of the reaction product H2S that it contains. Then the previous stream
which is Hydrogen rich gas free of H2S is recycled to be re-used in the reactor section. Any
excess gas from the gas separator vessel can join the sour gas from the stripping of the reaction
product liquid instead of recycling back to the reactor. The liquid from the gas separator vessel is
routed through a reboiled stripper distillation tower. The bottoms product from the stripper is the
final desulfurized liquid product from hydrodesulphurization unit. Then the over head sour gas
from the stripper contains some hydrogen, methane, ethane, and some butane and maybe other
heavier components is sent to refinery to convert it to sweet gas which could be used or
separated into useful components.