Abstract: The industrial trial of LTA technology for converting LCO to light aromatics was carried out in a LCO hydrotreating unit with capacity of 705 kt/a and a catalytic cracking unit with capacity of 700 kt/a in SINOPEC Yangzi Petrochemical Company, Ltd. The results showed that using the hydrotreated LCO with density of 921.0 kg/m³, hydrogen content of 10.92% and polycyclic aromatics content of 18.7% as FCC feed, the once-through conversion was 70.90%, the yields of gasoline, C₆-C₈ aromatics and C₆-C₁₀ monocyclic aromatics were up to 64.53%, 23.91% and 35.53%, respectively in full recycle operation. In addition, the industrial results of LTA technology also proved that the hydrotreated LCO feed can meet the heat-balance operation of reaction and regeneration system, and meanwhile the operation of the fractionator and absorbing-stabilizing system can be stable.

Key words: catalytic cracking, light cycle oil, hydrotreating, light aromatics