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TY - JOUR AU - Morales-Leal, Francisco PY - 2025 DA - 2025/10/24 TI - Bridging Refinery and Biorefinery: Modular Hydrotreating Pathways for Co-Processing Refractory Streams and Bio-Oils JO - Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels T2 - Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels JF - Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels VL - 2 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 5 DO - 10.62762/JCERF.2025.769005 UR - https://www.icck.org/article/abs/JCERF.2025.769005 KW - co-processing KW - hydrotreating KW - bio-oil KW - vacuum gas oil KW - modular refinery KW - catalyst deactivation AB - Integrating biomass-derived oils into existing petroleum refineries is one of the fastest routes toward large-scale deployment of renewable liquid fuels. Yet co-processing bio-oils with refractory fossil streams, such as vacuum gas oil, cycle oils or coker gas oils, poses persistent hurdles: their high oxygen content, thermal instability and heteroatom-rich matrices accelerate catalyst fouling and drive hydrogen consumption. This Perspective argues that a modular hydrotreating strategy, in which tailored pretreatment, grading and active catalyst beds are arranged as interchangeable cartridges, offers a pragmatic path to bridge refinery and biorefinery operations. Drawing from recent continuous slurry hydrocracking, fixed-bed co-hydrotreating and digital-twin studies, it outlines how modular bed architecture, advanced slurry catalysts and adaptive control schemes could unlock feed flexibility while extending catalyst life by ~40% and cutting greenhouse-gas footprints by ~25% relative to standalone units. Finally, a short-term R&D agenda linking accelerated deactivation testing, machine-learning-guided feed classification and life-cycle assessment benchmarks aimed is proposed at meeting 2030 renewable-diesel targets. SN - 3070-1058 PB - Institute of Central Computation and Knowledge LA - English ER -
@article{MoralesLeal2025Bridging,
author = {Francisco Morales-Leal},
title = {Bridging Refinery and Biorefinery: Modular Hydrotreating Pathways for Co-Processing Refractory Streams and Bio-Oils},
journal = {Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels},
year = {2025},
volume = {2},
number = {1},
pages = {1-5},
doi = {10.62762/JCERF.2025.769005},
url = {https://www.icck.org/article/abs/JCERF.2025.769005},
abstract = {Integrating biomass-derived oils into existing petroleum refineries is one of the fastest routes toward large-scale deployment of renewable liquid fuels. Yet co-processing bio-oils with refractory fossil streams, such as vacuum gas oil, cycle oils or coker gas oils, poses persistent hurdles: their high oxygen content, thermal instability and heteroatom-rich matrices accelerate catalyst fouling and drive hydrogen consumption. This Perspective argues that a modular hydrotreating strategy, in which tailored pretreatment, grading and active catalyst beds are arranged as interchangeable cartridges, offers a pragmatic path to bridge refinery and biorefinery operations. Drawing from recent continuous slurry hydrocracking, fixed-bed co-hydrotreating and digital-twin studies, it outlines how modular bed architecture, advanced slurry catalysts and adaptive control schemes could unlock feed flexibility while extending catalyst life by ~40\% and cutting greenhouse-gas footprints by ~25\% relative to standalone units. Finally, a short-term R\&D agenda linking accelerated deactivation testing, machine-learning-guided feed classification and life-cycle assessment benchmarks aimed is proposed at meeting 2030 renewable-diesel targets.},
keywords = {co-processing, hydrotreating, bio-oil, vacuum gas oil, modular refinery, catalyst deactivation},
issn = {3070-1058},
publisher = {Institute of Central Computation and Knowledge}
}
Copyright © 2025 by the Author(s). Published by Institute of Central Computation and Knowledge. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. 
Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels
ISSN: 3070-1058 (Online)
Email: [email protected]
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