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What is the meaning of SOR (Start of Run ) and EOR (End of run) condition? Particularly in naphtha hydrotreating and c5/c6 isomerisation unit when we can say catalyst EOR condition is started?
 
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08/06/2009 A: Virendra Kapoor, Petroleum Refining Consultants, vkkapoor9@yahoo.com
A naptha hydrotreater (NHDT) or Light naphtha isomerization plant is designed to do specified duty under a set and range of conditions. With the progress of time the catalyst gets deactivated and temperature is increased to compensate the deactivation for getting product of specified quality (e.g. sulfur, nitrogen etc in case of NHDT) and yield too. The period during SOR to EOR is called cycle length. The lowest temperature at which plant is commissioned to yield desired product quality for example sulfur of 0.5 ppm is called SOR. When the catalyst deactivation is reached to the extent that it has to be regenerated to get specified product quality we say that it has achieved EOR. Ultimate life is the period from SOR to catalyst replacement. In isom. Pt on chlorided alumina is non regenerable and lead lag system of two reactors is adopted. zeolite isom cat are regenerable.