02895 IUPAC Gold Book - hydrocracking unit 10.1351/goldbook.H02895 H02895 current 1 Used in the thermal decomposition of heavy (high molecular weight) hydrocarbons to smaller (low molecular weight) hydrocarbons; high pressures of hydrogen and a special catalyst are employed. Sulfur compounds in the fuel are reduced to $\ce{H2S}$, and the final hydrocarbon product can be obtained relatively sulfur-free. catalyst https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C00876 decomposition https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/D01547 hydrocarbons https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/H02889 molecular weight https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/M04000 PAC, 1990, 62, 2167. 'Glossary of atmospheric chemistry terms (Recommendations 1990)' on page 2195 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199062112167) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/H02895/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/H02895/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/H02895/plain Citation: 'hydrocracking unit' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.H02895 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-07-24T17:32:55+00:00