High rate reactor system
A process and system for upgrading an organic feedstock including providing an organic feedstock and water mixture, feeding the mixture into a high-rate, hydrothermal reactor, wherein the mixture is rapidly heated, subjected to heat, pressure, and turbulent flow, maintaining the heat and pressure of the mixture for a residence time of less than three minutes to cause the organic components of the mixture to undergo conversion reactions resulting in increased yields of distillate fuels, higher-quality kerosene and diesel fuels, and the formation of high octane naphtha compounds. Hydrocarbon products are cooled at a rate sufficient to inhibit additional reaction and recover of process heat, and depressurizing the hydrocarbon products, and separating the hydrocarbon products for further processing. The process and system can include devices to convert olefinic hydrocarbons into paraffinic hydrocarbons and convert olefinic byproduct gas to additional high-octane naphtha and/or heavier hydrocarbons by one of hydrogenations, alkylation, or oligomerization.
1 . A process for upgrading an organic feedstock comprising:
providing a feed stream mixture by combining an organic feedstock stream and a water stream, wherein the water stream and organic feedstock stream are combined at a water-to-organic feed volume ratio between 1:100 and 1:1 to form the feed stream mixture, wherein the feed stream mixture is pressurized to an entry pressure and heated to an entry temperature of less than 400° C., wherein the organic feedstock stream comprises plastics;
feeding the feed stream mixture into a high-rate reactor;
heating the feed stream mixture at a rate of 10-50° C. per second within the high-rate reactor to a reaction temperature at supercritical water conditions, wherein the entry temperature of the feed stream mixture is less than the reaction temperature of the feed stream mixture;
maintaining the reaction temperature at supercritical water conditions of the feed stream mixture in the high-rate reactor for a residence time resulting in a reactor effluent comprising upgraded hydrocarbon distillate products, wherein the feed stream mixture is maintained at a Reynolds number of at least 11,000;
quenching the reactor effluent by direct injection of water in a volume ratio of 1:10 to 2:1 to terminate conversion reactions; and
recovering the upgraded hydrocarbon distillate products.
2 . The process of claim 1 , further comprising, injecting a pressurized quench stream into the feed stream mixture when the feed stream mixture exits the high-rate reactor to terminate a conversion reaction of the feed stream mixture, resulting in a quenched mixture, wherein the quenched mixture passes through one or more feed-effluent heat exchangers to further cool the quenched mixture.
3 . The process of claim 2 , further including passing the quenched mixture from the one or more feed-effluent heat exchangers to a product cooling heat exchanger to cool the quenched mixture to a temperature suitable for separation.
4 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the entry pressure is within a range of 1500 to 6000 psig.
5 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the reaction temperature of the feed stream mixture in the high-rate reactor is 400-700° C.
6 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the organic feedstock further comprises synthetic hydrocarbons.
7 . The process of claim 6 , wherein the synthetic hydrocarbons comprise hydrocarbons produced from one or more of a Fischer-Tropsch process, an alkylation process, an oligomerization process, a polymerization process, or a biosynthetic process.
8 . The process of claim 6 , wherein the synthetic hydrocarbons comprise organic components.
9 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the organic feedstock stream further comprises crude oils exhibiting API gravities greater than 22°, waxy crude oils comprising yellow wax and/or black wax, and mixtures thereof.
10 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the organic feedstock stream further comprises renewable plant oil comprising canola, soybean, Carinata, and castor; waste vegetable oil; corn oil derived from distillers grains; animal tallow; algal oil; microbial oil; terpenes and other pine-related byproducts from tall oils; biosynthetic oils, and mixtures thereof.
11 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the organic feedstock stream further comprises natural gas liquids, natural gasoline, petroleum ether, light naphtha, heavy naphtha, kerosene, diesel, atmospheric gas oil, light crude oil, waxy crude oil, and mixtures thereof; that are reformed in the high-rate reactor into highly naphthenic and aromatic distillates, higher-octane naphtha and byproduct reformer gas containing hydrogen that may be used for hydrotreating other product streams.
12 . The process of claim 1 , wherein olefinic gas is a by-product of a conversion reaction within the high-rate reactor, the process further comprising converting the olefinic gas to high-octane naphtha and/or heavier hydrocarbons by one of alkylation or oligomerization.
13 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the feed stream mixture has a turbulent flow with a Reynolds number greater than 50,000 within the high-rate reactor.
14 . The process of claim 13 , further comprising maintaining the turbulent flow with the Reynolds number of greater than 50,000 within the high-rate reactor for the residence time of less than 60 seconds.
15 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the residence time is less than 60 seconds.
16 . A process for upgrading an organic feedstock comprising:
providing an organic feedstock stream comprising synthetic hydrocarbons obtained from a polymerization process;
providing a water mixture;
applying heat and pressure to the water mixture to form a superheated or supercritical water stream;
mixing the superheated or supercritical water stream with the organic feedstock stream to form a feed stream mixture;
feeding the feed stream mixture into a high-rate reactor at a high velocity to achieve a turbulent flow with a high Reynolds Number of at least 11,000 within the high-rate reactor, wherein the feed stream mixture enters the high-rate reactor at an entry temperature that is below a reaction temperature;
rapidly heating the feed stream mixture at a rate of 10-50° C. per second within the high-rate reactor to the reaction temperature at supercritical water conditions;
maintaining the reaction temperature, pressure, and Reynolds Number of the feed stream mixture in the high-rate reactor for a residence time of 1-120 seconds to achieve thermal equilibrium and cause organic components of the feed stream mixture to undergo a conversion reaction resulting in higher-value products;
injecting a pressurized quench stream into the feed stream mixture when the feed stream mixture exits the high-rate reactor to terminate the conversion reaction of the feed stream mixture, resulting in a quenched mixture;
feeding the quenched mixture through one or more feed-effluent heat exchangers to further cool the quenched mixture;
feeding the quenched mixture from the one or more feed-effluent heat exchangers through a product cooling heat exchanger to cool the quenched mixture to a temperature suitable for separation;
depressurizing the quenched mixture upon exiting the product cooling heat exchanger;
feeding the quenched mixture into a separator that separates the quenched mixture into water and one or more products of reaction, wherein the water from the quenched mixture is recycled into a water supply source for supplying the water mixture, the pressurized quench stream, or both; and
separating the one or more products of reaction into at least a fuel gas and upgraded hydrocarbon distillate products.
17 . The process of claim 16 , wherein the organic feedstock stream further comprises crude oils exhibiting API gravities greater than 22°, waxy crude oils comprising yellow wax and/or black wax, and mixtures thereof.
18 . The process of claim 16 , wherein the organic feedstock stream further comprises renewable plant oil comprising canola, soybean, Carinata, and castor; waste vegetable oil; corn oil derived from distillers grains; animal tallow; algal oil; microbial oil; terpenes and other pine-related byproducts from tall oils; biosynthetic oils, and mixtures thereof.
19 . The process of claim 16 , wherein the organic feedstock stream further comprises natural gas liquids, natural gasoline, petroleum ether, light naphtha, heavy naphtha, kerosene, diesel, atmospheric gas oil, light crude oil, waxy crude oil, and mixtures thereof; that are reformed in the high-rate reactor into highly naphthenic and aromatic distillates, higher-octane naphtha and byproduct reformer gas containing hydrogen that may be used for hydrotreating other product streams.
20 . The process of claim 16 , wherein maintaining the reaction temperature, pressure, and Reynolds Number of the feed stream mixture in the high-rate reactor includes maintaining the Reynolds number of at least 50,000 throughout high-rate reactor.