Evaluation of a Ni-Ce-Mo catalytic system for steam cracking of Bitumen
Abstract
Aquaprocessing is a proposed bitumen upgrading technology that aims to decrease both capital investment and operational cost, as mild conditions are used, no hydrogen is required and the complexity of the process is considerably reduced. Basically, bitumen flows through a fixed bed reactor in the presence of steam and catalysts. This project, intended to evaluate the performance of different supports containing nickel, cerium and molybdenum carbide. The operating conditions for the experiments were 370 °C, 400 psi and a weight hourly space velocity of 0.25 h-1. The best performing catalyst, a nickel-cerium hydrotalcite with 10%wt. of molybdenum carbide, reached 43% of residue conversion, while reducing viscosity from 152,000 to 743 cP at 20 °C, the asphaltene content from 17% to 14% and TAN magnitude to 0.2 mg KOH/g. Additionally, an increase of 3 °API was obtained in the products without altering the microcarbon value.
Description
Keywords
Chemistry, Engineering--Chemical
Citation
Bernal Sardi, L. (2017). Evaluation of a Ni-Ce-Mo catalytic system for steam cracking of Bitumen (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25980