Causes of Fines in a CCR Platforming Unit

Fines production reduces unit reliability due to Regenerator and/or reactor screen pluggage. Reduced severity and/or feed rate to clean screens can be required, reducing unit reliability. This paper investigates the various mechanisms for fines production, ie impact, attrition (pill on pill), abrasion (pill on wall), mechanical (edges and ledges) and thermal damage, and the various tests methods available for quantifying fines production. Bench scale testing, sophisticated analytical analyses, combined commercial feedback, highlight key mechanisms for fines production and a means to help refiner reduce fines production.