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}
}