Patent ID: 8679321

Claim:
A process for increasing aromatics production from a naphtha feedstream comprising: passing the naphtha feedstream containing naphthenes, aromatic hydrocarbons, and more than 50 wt. % of paraffins to a hydrotreater, thereby creating a naphtha feedstream with a reduced sulfur content; passing the naphtha feedstream with a reduced sulfur content and a hydrogen stream to a reformer containing a reforming catalyst operated at reforming conditions to convert paraffins and naphthenes to aromatic compounds via dehydrogenation and cyclization reactions, wherein the reforming conditions include a temperature of at least 560° C., and thereby creating a reformate stream; passing the reformate stream to a debutanizer or depentanizer, thereby creating a light overhead stream and a bottoms stream; passing the bottoms stream to a reformate splitter, thereby creating a reformate overhead stream comprising C6 to C7 aromatics, and a reformate bottoms stream comprising C8+ aromatics; passing the reformate overhead stream to an aromatics extraction unit, thereby creating a purified aromatics stream comprising C6 and C7 aromatics, and a raffinate stream containing paraffins and naphthenes; passing the raffinate stream to the hydrotreater, thereby creating a hydrotreater effluent stream with reduced sulfur; and passing the raffinate stream to the reformer.