CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 29, 2012 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at: www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Petar Sabev Varbanov, Hon Loong Lam, Jiří Jaromír Klemeš Copyright © 2012, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., ISBN 978-88-95608-20-4; ISSN 1974-9791 DOI: 10.3303/CET1229165 Please cite this article as: Kriván E., Valkai I. and Hancsók J., (2012), The oligomerization of olefin hydrocarbons in light FCC naphtha on ion exchange resin catalyst, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 29, 985-990 985 The Oligomerization of Olefin Hydrocarbons in Light FCC Naphtha on Ion Exchange Resin Catalyst Eszter Kriván* a , István Valkai b ,Jenő Hancsók a a University of Pannonia, Department of MOL Hydrocarbon and Coal processing, Egyetem street 10., H-8200 Veszprém, Hungary b MOL PLC. DS Development, H-2443, P.O.Box 1, Százhalombatta, Hungary krivane@almos.uni-pannon.hu In our experimental work our aim was the investigation of the possibility to convert olefin hydrocarbons of a light FCC naphtha fraction with oligomerization. In this framework, we studied the production possibilities of higher carbon number isoolefin rich motor fuel blending components, with oligomerization of the C4-C6 olefin content of the feedstock on water-containing acidic ion exchange resin catalysts. From the studied catalysts the ion exchange resin showed the highest oligomerization activity: the conversion of the olefins was 90.9 % and the share of oligomer products was 29.0 %. After hydrogenation of the C8-C16 isoolefin mixture, the octane number of gasoline product is around 100, the JET product has high energy content and low crystallization point, the cetane number of gas oil product is high and it has a good CFPP (cold filter plugging point). So with these two catalytic steps valuable products can be produced from light olefin-containing refinery by-products. 1. Introduction The oil refinery developments are primarily motivated by the environmental protection and economical efforts in the past decade. The quality requirements of motor fuels were tightened significantly, which are targeting the reduction of harmful material emission of the vehicles. The high degree of reduction of the sulphur and aromatic content were the most important. The growing motor fuel demand of the world makes it necessary to develop new technologies for producing different motor fuels (gasoline, jet, and diesel gas oil) or to improve the existing ones. Because of all these effects in the case of gasolines and diesel gas oils the useage of environmentally friendly, relatively "clean burning", and practically heteroatom-free, high n- and i-paraffin containing blending fractions in a larger quantity came into front. From the options which from the lower value light hydrocarbons (C3-C6 paraffins and olefins) are producing heavier and more valuable products (gasoline or middle distillate) have great importance. Therefore the oligomerization technologies which are flexible from the point of the product composition will be more important than the conventional solutions (e.g. alkylation, production of ethers). During oligomerization from these olefins isoolefins in different boiling point ranges (depending on the degree of oligomerization compounds in the gasoline, jet or diesel gas oil boiling point range are formed) can be produced, which can be converted into isoparaffins after hydrogenation. Therefore with the application of this technology the gasoline- JET-diesel gas oil flexibility of the oil refinery can be enhanced greatly. The feedstock of oligomerization can be the fractions rich in light olefin (3-6 carbon number) produced as by-products during the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and other thermal technologies in relatively