Patent ID: 7776286

Claim:
An apparatus for cracking a hydrocarbon feedstock containing resid, said apparatus comprising: (1) a convection heater for heating said hydrocarbon feedstock; (2) an inlet for introducing steam and optionally water to said heated hydrocarbon feedstock to form a mixture stream; (3) a flash/separation drum for treating said mixture stream to form i) a vapor phase which partially cracks and/or loses heat causing partial condensation of said vapor phase to provide uncoalesced supersaturated coke precursors as entrained liquid, and ii) a liquid phase; said drum further comprising a flash/separation drum overhead outlet for removing the vapor phase as overhead and a flash/separation drum liquid outlet for removing said liquid phase as bottoms from said flash/separation drum; (4) a centrifugal separator for at least partially removing said entrained liquid from said overhead downstream of said flash/separation drum, with a condensing means located within said centrifugal separator that includes a condenser for treating said overhead downstream of said flash/separation apparatus by at least partially coalescing said supersaturated coke precursors to provide liquid which can further coalesce with additional uncoalesced supersaturated coke precursors to provide additional coalesced coke precursors; (5) a collecting means comprising a liquid outlet line from the centrifugal separator for collecting said liquid and said additional coalesced coke precursors; (6) a convection heater for heating said treated overhead to provide a heated vapor phase; (7) a pyrolysis furnace comprising a radiant section for cracking the heated vapor phase to produce an effluent comprising olefins; and (8) a means for quenching the effluent and recovering cracked product therefrom.