(600ax) Effect of Reaction Parameters on Hydrocracking of Petroleum Vacuum Residue with Activated Carbons in Supercritical Hydrocarbon Solvents

Because of the depletion of conventional light crude oils and rising demand for valuable petroleum products, the petroleum industries have been forced to refine the heavy feedstocks such as oil sands, bitumen and heavy residues. Among the heavy feedstocks, vacuum residue (VR) is the heaviest fraction obtained from the vacuum distillation. It includes mainly hydrocarbons with high boiling points over 520°C, and also about 5% sulfur, 0.5% nitrogen and minor amounts of organometallic compounds such as nickel and vanadium. The objective of this study is to achieve high conversion of vacuum residue (VR) to lower boiling hydrocarbon products with reducing coke formation in supercritical hydrocracking process (SHP). Since the performance of the SHP for VR could be affected by various operating conditions, the parametric experimental study was carried out in a batch reactor using hydrocarbon solvents. Five kinds of activated carbon catalysts (bituminous coal-derived activated carbon (AC), coconuts shell-derived activated carbon (MAC), their acid treated AC and MAC and Fe impregnated acid treated AC) were applied to SHP. The reaction results at various operating conditions, such as temperature (350, 380 and 400°C), hydrogen partial pressure (0.50, 1.38 and 3.45 MPa), reaction time (5, 10 and 30min) were compared with each other. In addition, the effects of additives (H₂O, methanol, ethanol and H₂/CO₂ mixture) on SHP were evaluated. The SHP parametric results were evaluated under conversion, coke formation, and distribution of oil products (naphtha, middle distillate, vacuum gas oil, and residue).