Product

Hydrocracked kerosene is a kerosene-range middle distillate produced in a hydrocracking unit, rather than drawn directly from the atmospheric distillation tower. A hydrocracker takes heavy feedstocks — typically atmospheric or vacuum gas oil (AGO/VGO), fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) recycle oils, or coker gas oils — and breaks (cracks) their heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter fractions in the presence of hydrogen and a bifunctional catalyst under high temperature (330–450 °C) and high pressure (100–200 bar). The kerosene fraction recovered from the hydrocracker fractionator — boiling in the 150–250 °C range — is hydrocracked kerosene.

Two simultaneous reactions produce the product: catalytic cracking breaks the long-chain heavy molecules into shorter, lighter hydrocarbons, and hydrogenation saturates the resulting unsaturated fragments with hydrogen. The combined effect yields a product that is not only lighter than the feedstock but also virtually free of sulphur, nitrogen, and aromatic contaminants — key quality attributes for jet fuel.

The resulting kerosene is characterised by very high paraffin content, low aromatic content, excellent thermal stability, and ultra-low sulphur, making it an outstanding blendstock for — or direct producer of — on-specification Jet A-1. It is chemically and physically indistinguishable in the final product from hydrotreated straight-run kerosene once it meets the ASTM D1655 or DEF STAN 91-091 specification; the difference lies entirely in feedstock origin and production route, not in the delivered product quality.

Hydrocracking has grown in strategic importance for jet fuel supply precisely because it unlocks heavier, less valuable crude fractions as a kerosene source — a barrel of VGO that would otherwise yield little kerosene on simple distillation can be converted into a high-yield stream of clean jet fuel blendstock through the hydrocracker.