Ill. Fluid catalytic cracking of oil feedstocks produces a large portion of the US gasoline supply. Thus, optimizing nozzle properties, including the degree of atomization and spray patterns, can improve gasoline yield by 1 to 5 percent.
Laser beams crisscross atomized oil feedstocks.
Photonic analytical methods are helping researchers at Argonne National Laboratory optimize nozzles used to refine feedstocks and thereby increase gasoline yields by 1 to 5 percent. Argonne initiated the project to test whether a method called phase Doppler particle analysis could help measure the spray distributions from commercial feed nozzles. The technique fires a split laser beam into the spray and measures the velocity and particle size of the droplets. The primary concern was the technique's ability to penetrate deeply into the sprays. The research proved that the analytical technique could be applied to commercial feed nozzles, which meant they can be used to assess a variety of fluid catalytic cracking nozzles, including hollow cone, solid cone, flat spray and multiorifice sprays.