(358e) Correlation between the Yield of Deasphalted Oil and Hansen Solubility Parameter of Its Feedstock in a Solvent Deasphalting Process

For using heavy oil energy source, the asphaltene components leading to coke formation and catalyst poisoning should be eliminated. Among the heavy oil upgrading processes, solvent deasphalting (SDA) process is specialized in the selective removal of asphaltene components. The feedstock of SDA process is substantially viscous and high-molecular-weight oil such as vacuum residue and bitumen, and C3-C6 alkane is used as the extraction solvent. The extraction solvent selectively dissolves deasphalted oil and rejects asphaltene components that are not dissolved into the solvent.

It is expected that the modeling of the SDA extraction can be very effective for the development of the process though, the study of the modeling of the SDA extraction is at the basic level since the structure and phase equilibrium of heavy oil is still controversy. In the previous study, only single solubility parameter difference between the feedstock and extraction solvent was used as roughly verifying the relationship between the yield of deasphalted oil. However, in this study, it was examined that the relationship between the yield of deasphalted oil and relative energy difference, which was calculated from (1) three Hansen solubility parameters of the feedstock and extraction solvent, and (2) extraction conditions such as solvent types, temperature, and solvent to oil ratio. Incidentally, the feedstock was separated into SARA components and their Hansen solubility parameter were obtained because the solubility levels of heavy oil feedstock range widely.