Benzene Reduction Units for Sale

There are several approaches available to reduce the benzene in refiners' finished gasoline. Since naphtha reforming is the predominant source of benzene in a typical refinery, the prevention of the formation of benzene in the reformer is accomplished by pre-fractionation of the naphtha feed to remove the benzene precursors. However, for many refiners, pre-fractionation of the reformer feed does not provide sufficient benzene reduction to achieve 0.62 vol% in the gasoline pool. Alternatively, the conversion of benzene produced in the reformer is implemented downstream of a reformate splitter. The benzene containing light reformate fraction from this splitter is sent to a hydrogenation reactor, where benzene is converted to cyclohexane. Both of these strategies result in a loss of octane barrels and an additional burden on the hydrogen balance in the refinery. The third approach is benzene extraction for the petrochemical market. While petrochemical benzene can be an attractive product, there is significant investment required to recover benzene. And unless the refinery has existing facilities ?or capacity for such a process, it is very difficult to justify ?this investment on a small scale.