Thermal cracking of Athabasca bitumen
Abstract
The prime purpose of this work was to provide thermal cracking reaction models which can be incorporated into numerical simulators of thermal recovery processes for the Athabasca Oil Sands. Athabasca bitumen, free of water and minerals, was thermally cracked at constant temperatures in a closed system under an inert atmosphere. The products of cracking were separated into six pseudo components: coke, asphaltenes, heavy oils, middle oils, light oils and gases. Experimental runs were made over the temperature range from 303°c to 452°c. Three series of runs were made at 360°c, 397°C and 422°C in which the reactions were terminated at various degrees of cracking. For these runs, reaction time versus product concentration curves were obtained for the above six pseudo components. Several pseudo reaction mechanisms are proposed to simulate the experimental results. The reaction rate constants were represented by an Arrehnius type expression, the activation energies and corresponding frequency factors were determined for each reaction mechanisms proposed.
Description
Bibliography: p. 105-109.
Keywords
Citation
Hayashitani, M. (1978). Thermal cracking of Athabasca bitumen (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/15891