An ebullated bed hydroprocessing system is upgraded using a dual catalyst system that includes a heterogeneous catalyst and dispersed metal sulfide particles to hydroprocess opportunity feedstocks (i.e., lower quality heavy oils or lower quality feedstock blends) while maintaining or increasing the rate of production of converted products. The dual catalyst system improves the ability of the upgraded ebullated bed hydroprocessing system to accommodate and withstand negative effects of periodic use of opportunity feedstocks (e.g., without significantly increasing equipment fouling and/or sediment production). In some cases, an upgraded ebullated bed reactor using the dual catalyst system can hydroprocess opportunity feedstocks while decreasing equipment fouling and/or sediment production.

According to one or more embodiments, non-agglomerated, nano-sized ZSM-22 zeolites may be synthesized by methods comprising operating a mechanical rotation drum unit at a first temperature of from 40° C. to 60° C. and a first speed of from 200 rpm to 1000 rpm for a first time period of from 1.3 hours to 2.7 hours; operating the mechanical rotation drum unit at a second speed of from 30 rpm to 90 rpm for a second time period of from 0.05 hours to 0.4 hours; heating the mechanical rotation drum unit at a ramping temperature of from 8° C./minute to 12° C./minute to a second temperature of from 115° C. to 185° C. at the second speed; operating the mechanical rotation drum unit at the second temperature and the second speed for a third time period of from 30 hours to 90 hours; and cooling the mechanical rotation drum unit at a fourth speed of 0 rpm.

A process for upgrading heavy oil is provided, which integrates thermal cracking, hydrogenolysis, and catalytic aquathermolysis. A catalytic hydrogen-aquathermolysis reactor receives a heavy oil feed, water and hydrogen. In addition catalytic materials and a viscosity reducing agent are introduced. The catalytic hydrogen-aquathermolysis reactor is operated at conditions effective to produce an upgraded heavy oil product.

The present disclosure provides methods for hydroprocessing of heavy oils, such as pyrolysis tars. For example, a process for preparing a liquid hydrocarbon product includes providing a first process stream comprising a reduced reactivity tar, and blending the first process stream with a utility fluid to produce a second process stream comprising solids and a reduced reactivity, lower viscosity tar. The method can includes introducing the second process stream into a guard reactor without sulfiding the guard reactor catalyst(s) prior to introducing the second process stream into the guard reactor. The method includes hydroprocessing the second process stream in the guard reactor under mild hydroprocessing conditions to produce a third process stream. The method includes hydroprocessing the third process stream to produce a fourth process stream having a bromine number (BN) lower than 12 and comprising the liquid hydrocarbon product and the utility fluid.

Described herein are methods, systems, and compositions for providing catalysts for tail gas clean up in sulfur recovery operations. Aspects involve obtaining catalyst that was used in a first process, which is not a tailgas treating process and then using the so-obtained catalyst in a tailgas treating process. For example, the catalyst may originally be a hydroprocessing catalyst. A beneficial aspect of the described methods and systems is that the re-use of spent hydroprocessing catalyst reduces hazardous waste generation by operators from spent catalyst disposal. Ultimately, this helps reduce the environmental impact of the catalyst life cycle. The described methods and systems also provide an economically attractive source of high-performance catalyst for tailgas treatment, which benefits the spent catalyst generator, the catalyst provider, and the catalyst consumer.

A unique process and catalyst is described that operates efficiently for the direct production of a high cetane diesel type fuel or diesel type blending stock from stochiometric mixtures of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This invention allows for, but is not limited to, the economical and efficient production high quality diesel type fuels from small or distributed fuel production plants that have an annual production capacity of less than 10,000 barrels of product per day, by eliminating traditional wax upgrading processes. This catalytic process is ideal for distributed diesel fuel production plants such as gas to liquids production and other applications that require optimized economics based on supporting distributed feedstock resources.

The invention relates to a process for producing an upgraded renewable oil from renewable carbonaceous material(-s) comprising providing a low sulphur oxygen containing renewable crude oil having a sulphur content of less than 0.5 wt % and an oxygen content from about 2.0 wt to about 20 wt %, pressurising the low sulphur oxygen containing renewable crude oil to an operational pressure in the range 20 to 200 bar, adding and mixing hydrogen to the pressurized low sulphur oxygen containing crude oil, heating the oil to an operational temperature in the range 180-410° C. in one or more steps, contacting said oil with at least one heterogeneous catalyst contained in a first reaction zone, contacting the effluent from said first reaction zone with at least one heterogeneous catalyst contained in a second reaction zone, where in at least one of the heterogeneous catalaysts in the first reaction zone and/or the second reaction zone is on a non-suplhided form.

Methods of catalytic hydrogenation, including methods that may be used to hydrogenate an unsaturated reactant to produce an at least partially saturated product that may be a solid at 20° C. Systems for catalytic hydrogenation that may include a reactor bed containing one or more activated carbon monolith catalysts. At least 97% of unsaturated bonds may be saturated by the methods and systems.

The present invention provides a process for upgrading a Fischer-Tropsch product by hydrocracking in the presence of a hydrocracking catalyst in a reactor, wherein the process is initiated by a series of steps (i) to (iv). The hydrocracking catalyst is (i) contacted with a hydrogen-containing stream having a feed temperature of from 360° C. to 420° C.; (ii) the feed temperature of the hydrogen-containing stream is reduced to a temperature of from 220° C. to 280° C.; (iii) the catalyst is contacted with a Fischer-Tropsch product stream having a feed temperature of from 220° C. to 280° C., which is co-fed with the hydrogen-containing stream; and (iv) the catalyst is co-fed with a Fischer-Tropsch product stream and hydrogen-containing stream having feed temperatures of from 380° C. and 400° C. for at least four days and wherein the hydrocracking catalyst is not activated by sulfiding.

A system for producing a hydrocarbon by high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is described. The system includes a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis unit, a reaction water separation unit, and a catalyst reduction unit. The catalyst reduction unit uses a gas containing the tail gas of the synthesis unit as a reducing gas and a small amount of synthesis gas for adjusting the hydrogen to carbon ratio, to react with the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis catalyst. After the reduction reaction, the reacted gas is cooled to room temperature, and enters a gas-liquid separator to obtain a gas phase and a liquid phase. The gas phase flows to a cryogenic separation unit to recover gaseous hydrocarbons. The liquid phase is separated into reaction water and Fischer-Tropsch oil products. The reduced catalyst is sent to the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis unit. The catalyst reduction unit achieves high energy efficiency, product diversity, and risk resistance.