Technical development of catalytic reforming processes

The development of catalytic reforming process technology is closely linked to the development of reforming catalysts. From the viewpoint of the development process of reforming catalysts, it has gone through three stages:

The first stage was from 1940 to 1949. the first catalytic reforming unit with molybdenum oxide/aluminum oxide as catalyst was built in the United States in 1940, and later referred to as industrial unit with chromium oxide/aluminum oxide as catalyst. These processes are also known as chromium reforming (or molybdenum reforming) or pro-hydrogen reforming, the octane number of the resulting gasoline can be up to about 80, with better stability and higher gasoline yield, so it was developed very quickly during the Second World War. However, the activity of molybdenum (or chromium) catalyst is not high, and it is easy to coking deactivation, so the reaction period is short, the processing capacity is small, and the operation cost is large. So the development stopped after the Second World War.

The second stage was from 1949 to 1967, when the American Universal Company developed platinum catalysts, and catalytic reforming was rapidly developed. Platinum catalysts have higher activity than molybdenum oxide catalysts and can be reacted under more moderate conditions to obtain gasoline with a higher octane number. When using a fixed-bed reactor, continuous production for more than 1 year without regeneration is possible. The gasoline yield is about 90% with an octane number of 90 or more and good stability. In the platinum reforming of the resulting oil contains aromatics 30% to 70%, so it is also an important source of aromatics production.

The third stage is from 1967 to now. 1967 began to appear platinum rhenium bimetallic reforming catalysts, and later appeared multi-metal catalysts. The outstanding advantages of platinum rhenium catalyst is strong carbon capacity, high stability, can be operated at higher temperatures and lower hydrogen partial pressure children maintain good activity, thus promoting the continuous improvement of catalytic reforming process. For this reason, the continuous reforming process is gradually replacing the semi-regenerative and cyclic regenerative processes.