The heart of the process is a slurry reactor in which the heavy feed is hydrocracked to lighter products in the presence of nano-sized, molybdenum-based catalyst.
At least two coking drums continuously operate in a cyclic, batch-wise fashion.
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There are emerging technologies, such as resid hydrocracking, which adds hydrogen to the bottom of the barrel to maximize the liquid yield for a higher conversion rate and yields more valuable products, ranging from fuels to petrochemical feedstocks, all of which require further processing and additional assets, such as sulfur plants and hydrogen complex systems, not to mention power.