Bitumen upgrade by using conventional and microwave reactor

Abstract

Hydrocracking reaction was chosen for bitumen upgrading. Macroporous-γ-$Al_2O_3$(MGA) was prepared by using polystyrene(PS) bead as template. The size of the macropores can be tailored by controlling the size of template. Ni-Mo was loaded on MGA by impregnation. XRD (X-ray Diffraction), SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy) and BET were used to study the structure and surface morphology of catalysts. MGA-100 support using the 100 nm PS bead had the largest surface area and pore volume. Hydrocracking production by using NiMo/MGA-100 catalyst produced a lot of liquid products and had the best result based on API, TLC, HDM, HDS, HDN and SIMDIS analyses. The high activities of NiMo/MGA-100 catalyst are resulted from the rapid mass transfer in template-made catalysts, which have larger pore size and greater pore volume than those of commercial catalysts. The addition of 1wt% Pt to Ni-Mo/MGA-100 led to significant increase of activity in HDN, API gravity, TLC and SIMDIS. A microwave heating method was tested in hydrogen atmosphere for bitumen upgrading. To overcome the poor microwave heating of bitumen, the reactions with the addition of a silicon carbide(SiC) passive heating element were repeated. SiC was coated by alumina for application as the catalyst. $Ni/Al_2O_3/SiC$, $Mo/Al_2O_3/SiC$ and $NiMo/Al_2O_3/SiC$ catalysts were made by the impregnation method. $NiMo/Al_2O_3/SiC$ catalyst had the highest catalytic activity. This catalyst created about 70 wt% liquid product and had the best result based on API, TLC, HDS, HDN and SIMDIS. Especially, very high energy efficiency and catalytic activity seemed to be possible because catalytic reaction occurred around SiC as direct microwave heating material. As a result, liquid products produced by microwave heating and hydrocracking were seen as almost equal in quality.