In this study, the effects of different loading doses of cerium in the prepared NaY zeolite from Iraqi kaolin were investigated. Al-Duara refinery atmospheric residue fluid catalytic cracking was selected as palpation reaction for testing the catalytic activity of cerium loading NaY zeolite. The insertion of cerium in NaY zeolites has been synthesized by simple ion exchange methods. Three samples of modified zeolite Y have been obtained by replacing the sodium ions in the original sample with cerium and the weight percent added are 0.35, 0.64, and 1.06 respectively. The effects of cerium loading to zeolite Y in different weight percent on the cracking catalysts were studied by employing a laboratory fluidized bed reactor. The experiments have been performed with weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) range from 6 to 24 h-1, and the temperature range from 450 to 510 oC.
The activity of the catalyst with 1.06 wt% cerium has been shown to be much greater than that of the sample parent NaY. Also it was observed that the addition of the cerium causes an increase in the thermal stability of the zeolite.