Reforming- Heterogeneus

QUERINI, C.A.

Encyclopedia of Catalysis

John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Año: 2002; p. 1 - 50

The catalytic reforming process is one of the basic petroleum refining processes.  The objective is the transformation of the low-octane virgin naphtha into high-octane gasoline by increasing concentration of aromatics and i-paraffins.  The gasoline-range molecules are predominantly rearranged or reformed, without altering their carbon number.  The octane number of the gasoline increases as the aromatic and isoparaffinic contents increase. The catalytic reformer can be operated to obtain a high-octane blending stock for motor fuel (motor fuel reformer) or a mixture of aromatics hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX reformer).  In both cases, hydrogen is a very important and valuable product, and is used in the refineries as a source for hydrotreating, hycrocracking or hydrorefining processes.