Abstract: By deeply integrating variable-diameter-fluidized-bed catalytic cracking and gasoline adsorptive desulfurization technologies, a research and development strategy targeting multi-dimensional improvements in gasoline octane number, such as carbon number and structure, has been proposed. This has led to the development of low-energy consumption gasoline light and heavy fraction separation technology, flexible gasoline light fraction adsorptive desulfurization technology, and flexible gasoline heavy fraction adsorptive desulfurization technology. These technologies were applied to No. 1 catalytic cracking unit, No. 3 catalytic cracking unit, and two sets of S Zorb units in SINOPEC Jinling Company in 2024. The application results showed that the energy consumption of the two catalytic cracking units decreased by 1.58 kgOE/t (1 kgOE = 41.8 MJ) and 1.27 kgOE/t, respectively; the properties of both gasoline light and heavy fractions met the feed requirements of the S Zorb units. The No. 1 S Zorb unit processed gasoline light fraction with a desulfurization rate of 97.28% and a refined gasoline research octane number (RON) loss of 0.8; the No. 2 S Zorb unit processed gasoline heavy fraction with a desulfurization rate of 97.46% and a refined gasoline RON loss of 0.2. By further rectifying the existing fractionation, stabilization, and absorption systems, the energy consumption of the catalytic cracking unit is expected to decrease by more than 4.50 kgOE/t. After further optimization of the flexible gasoline light and heavy fraction adsorptive desulfurization technology, the RON loss of the product gasoline can approach zero or even increase.

Key words: catalytic cracking, S Zorb process, gasoline, octane number, energy consumption