INTERCRITERIA AND REGRESSION ANALYSES TO DECIPHER THE MEANING OF CHARACTERISTICS OF FEEDS CONTAINING RESIDUES FOR THE PREDICTION OF CATALYTIC CRACKING PERFORMANCE

Data for catalytic cracking of ten feeds, which contain residues were evaluated by using intercriteria andregression analyses with the aim to verify the established in a previous study relations, based on catalytic cracking of nine vacuum gas oils, and to develop new correlations to predict product selectivity. The previously developed correlation that calculates vacuum gas oil conversion from aromatic carbon and hydrogen contents was found to be the best for prediction of conversion of the feeds containing residues too. It was found that the selectivity towards production of dry gas, coke, and gasoline of both VGOs and residue containing feeds can be predicted from the same feed characteristics: aromatic carbon, hydrogen, sulphur, and polars contents, and molecular weight. However, the bottoms cracking of the VGOs needs to be modelled separately from that of the residue containing feeds.