Predicting The Composition Of Qurna Crude Oil Fraction By Ternary Composition Diagram

With a goal to identify, and ultimately removing from the oil fraction, the carcinogenic components, an oil fraction oil has been analyzed into a main three hydrocarbon groups, paraffins, aromatics, and polycyclic saturates. A multi-stage adsorption apparatus has been used. Four units of 300 g alumina each seems to be sufficient for removing the polynuclear aromatics from 75 g of an oil fraction boiling between 365-375 °C from Qurna crude oil. The usefulness of the ternary diagram for analyzing the oil fraction to the three hydrocarbons groups has been studied and verified. An experimentally based linear relationship of density and refractive index was established to enable of identifying the composition of an oil fraction using the values on refractive index alone. Separation of uncontaminated paraffins requires higher adsorbent/ oil ratio and/or more significant number of adsorption units. Ensuring no overloading of the adsorbent was essential for the separation.

Removal of Heavy Polynuclear Aromatics by Activated Carbons

Heavy polynuclear aromatics (HPNA) is a complex molecules generated during hydrocracking process in waxy oil. HPNA is eliminated by a commercial activated carbon in the absorber to prevent the fouling in the pipelines and the decrease of product yield. In this work, the commercial activated carbons containing the different micropores and the different mesopores were selected to investigate the influence of pore structure on the HPNA removal. Here, the surface area of commercial activated carbons were quite equivalent. The results show that the activated carbon possessing the high mesopores can adsorb HPNA better than the activated carbon having the high micropores in spite of the summation of a micropore volume and a mesopore volume are quite equal. Therefore, the mesopore structure is a major role in the HPNA removal.

Hydrogenation of Tetralin over Supported Ni and Ir Catalysts

Selective hydrogenation and ring opening (SRO) of tetrahydronaphthalene (tetralin) was studied over nickel and iridium supported catalysts in the context of the removal of polynuclear aromatics from diesel fuel. The tetralin hydrogenation was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor at 270°C, using H2pressure of 30 bars, WHSV of 2.3 h−1, and H2/feed molar ratio of 40; the resultant products were analyzed by GC and GC-MS. The Ir/SiO2catalyst gave 85% of tetralin conversion and 75.1% of decalin products selectivity whereas Ni/SiO2catalyst showed an unprecedented high catalytic performance with 88.3% of tetralin conversion and 93% of decalin products selectivity. The catalysts were characterized by using different characterization techniques such as XRD, TPR, and HR-TEM to know the physicochemical properties as well as active sites in the catalysts.