Conversion of fine catalyst into coke-like material

• US 7,737,068 B2
• Filed: 12/20/2007
• Issued: 06/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Chevron USA Incorporated (Chevron Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Chevron USA Incorporated (Chevron Corp.)
• Inventors: Lopez, Jose Guitian, Powers, Christopher A., Mohr, Donald H., Reynolds, Bruce E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wood; Elizabeth D
• Application Number:
  US12/003,218
• Publication Number:
  US 20090163352A1
• Time in Patent Office: 908 Days
• Field of Search: 502/21, 502/22, 502/56, 423/53, 423/139, 423/150.1, 423/54, 423/594.17, 423/63, 423/67, 423/68
• US Class Current: 502/56
• CPC Class Codes: C10B 55/00 Coking mineral oils, bitumen, tar, and the like or mixtures thereof with solid carbonaceous material cracking oils C10G
• CPC Class Codes: C10B 57/005 After-treatment of coke, e.g. calcination desulfurization
• CPC Class Codes: C22B 23/026 from spent catalysts
• CPC Class Codes: C22B 34/225 from spent catalysts
• CPC Class Codes: C22B 34/345 from spent catalysts
• CPC Class Codes: C22B 7/009 General processes for recovering metals or metallic compounds from spent catalysts for recovering specific metals C22B11/00 - C22B61/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 10/20 Recycling

Abstract

A process for recovering catalytic metals from fine catalyst slurried in heavy oil comprises pyrolizing fine catalyst slurried in heavy oil to provide one or more lighter oil products and a coke-like material and recovering catalytic metals from the coke-like material.

Claims

1. A process for recovering metals from spent fine catalyst slurried in heavy oil, the process comprising:

pyrolizing the spent fine catalyst slurried in heavy oil by thermal cracking to provide one or more lighter oil products and a coke-like material comprising metals; and

recovering metals from the coke-like material,

wherein the spent fine catalyst slurried in heavy oil comprises a Group VI metal sulfide and/or a Group VIII metal sulfide.

2. The process of claim 1, wherein pyrolizing is conducted in a reactor selected from the group consisting of standard delayed coking unit, a modified delayed coking unit, a screw reactor type of pyrolyzer, a screw coker, a rotary kiln, and a rotary calciner.

3. The process of claim 1, wherein pyrolizing comprises heating to a temperature of greater than 700°

F.

4. The process of claim 1, wherein pyrolizing comprises heating for greater than 0.5 hours.

5. The process of claim 1, wherein the coke-like material has sufficient porosity to allow leaching of metals in the fine catalyst.

6. The process of claim 1, wherein the fine catalyst is partially or completely spent.

7. The process of claim 1, wherein the fine catalyst comprises particles having a size of less than 10 microns.

8. The process of claim 1, further comprising grinding the coke-like material.

9. The process of claim 1, further comprising grinding the coke-like material to a particle size ranging from about greater than 1 to less than 50 microns.

10. The process of claim 1, further comprising slurrying the coke-like material with water.

11. The process of claim 1, wherein recovering metals from the coke-like material comprises subjecting the coke-like material to leaching reactions.

12. The process of claim 11, wherein the leaching reactions occur in an autoclave, wherein the coke-line material comprises molybdenum, nick, and vanadium.

13. The process of claim 12, wherein ammonia and oxygen are supplied to an ammoniacal pressure leaching autoclave to induce leaching reactions.

14. The process of claim 12, wherein the leaching reactions produce ammonium molybdate and nickel ammonium sulfate.

15. The process of claim 13, further comprising filtering ammonium molybdate as a solid in a leach slurry from nickel ammonium sulfate in a solution.

16. The process of claim 1, wherein the fine catalyst slurried in heavy oil comprises particles having a mean particle size of about 4-5 micron.

17. The process of claim 1, wherein the fine catalyst slurried in heavy oil is from a catalyst bleed stream from a vacuum resid unit.

18. The process of claim 17, wherein the catalyst bleed stream comprises unsupported slurry catalyst, carbon fines, and metal finds in unconverted resid hydrocarbon oil.

19. The process of claim 18, wherein the catalyst bleed stream comprises 5-40 wt. % solids.

20. The process of claim 19, wherein the catalyst bleed stream comprises 15-30 wt. % solids.