LAUSR

Sulfur removal is one of the key functions of vacuum gas oil (VGO) hydrotreating reactors. Knowing feed and product properties real-time or near-real-time improves reactor operations. The VGO section of crude distillation unit is also prone to severe high-temperature sulfidic and naphthenic acid corrosion. In this article, we evaluate a single-reflectance attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy as a possible quick and cost-effective methodology to determine total carboxylic acid number (TCAN) and total sulfur content of VGO. The study shows that single-reflectance diamond ATR crystal methodology has the right signal-to-noise ratio to accurately predict TCAN and total sulfur within the primary method’s repeatability. Statistical models have been developed using 64 sample sets of vacuum gas oil and out of which 10 samples were used for the cross-validation of the model. The range of TCAN in VGO samples used in this study was between 0.37 and 13.8 mg KOH/g, and sulfur ...