SBIR Phase I: Laser activated viscosity reduction and upgrading of bitumen for transportation to refineries

SBIR 第一阶段：激光激活沥青粘度降低和升级，用于运输到炼油厂

• 批准号: 1548948
• 负责人: Partha Dutta
• 金额: $ 14.98万
• 依托单位: Lunas Power Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2016-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1548948&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Laser; activated; viscosity

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a revolutionary new technology for upgrading and reducing the viscosity of bitumen, an oil sands feedstock. Bitumen is a major source of heavy crude oil for the US, but has 10,000-100,000 times higher viscosity than traditional crude, requiring producers to decrease its viscosity prior to transport to refineries, using highly volatile and costly additives (diluents). This requirement adds $9-14 of cost per barrel and consumes valuable transport capacity (the diluent occupies a third of a barrel of raw bitumen), intensifying the need for additional rail/pipeline transport capacity. This Phase I project will develop fundamental knowledge about a new, patent-pending, laser-based process that has recently demonstrated significant reduction in bitumen viscosity without the use of diluent or other chemicals. This effort constitutes a critical step in commercializing the process and realizing turnkey equipment for use by bitumen producers in Canada and beyond. It is estimated that processing 100,000 barrels/day (BPD) via this process could save producers approximately $400 million annually. If implemented, this process would also drastically decrease the environmental risk associated with diluent transport.The intellectual merit of this project lies in the photo-activated disintegration of chemical bonds using a nonlinear optical, multiphoton absorption process, coupled with fluid rheology control in viscoelastic fluid. The photonic technology in this project utilizes the absolute minimum energy necessary to selectively crack large hydrocarbon molecules into smaller molecules and requires no chemical additives. In laboratory-scale research, this process has successfully reduced the viscosity of raw bitumen by three orders of magnitude and enhanced the American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity, taking the feedstock from an immobile complex molecular ensemble to an upgraded, free-flowing fluidic state. The nonlinear optical process provides enhanced optical absorption in the material, thus resulting in better energy utilization for the chemical bond breaking process and associated viscosity change, in comparison to thermal visbreaking, the current industry-standard process. This Phase I project will develop fundamental understanding of the experimental parameters (such as wavelength, irradiance and exposure time of optical radiation) necessary to maximize the basic cracking process efficiency and to control the aklyation, aromaticity and polymerization processes needed to premium-quality petroleum products. In turn, the fundamental knowledge acquired will guide the future development of commercial-scale equipment with this process.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I阶段项目将开发一种革命性的新技术，用于升级和降低油砂原料沥青的粘度。沥青是美国重型原油的主要来源，但粘度比传统原油高10,000-100,000倍，要求生产商使用高度挥发性和昂贵的添加剂（稀释剂）在运输到炼油厂之前降低其粘度。这项要求增加了每桶9-14美元的成本，并消耗了宝贵的运输能力（稀释剂占用了生沥青的三分之一），从而加剧了对额外的铁路/管道运输能力的需求。该阶段I项目将开发有关一种新的，专利的，基于激光的过程的基本知识，该工艺最近在不使用稀释剂或其他化学物质的情况下显示出沥青粘度的显着降低。 这项工作构成了商业化流程和实现交钥匙设备的关键步骤，以便加拿大及其他地区的沥青生产商使用。据估计，通过此过程处理100,000桶/天（BPD）可能每年为生产商节省约4亿美元。 如果实施，此过程还将大大降低与稀释剂运输相关的环境风险。该项目的智力优点在于使用非线性光学的多功能吸收过程进行化学键的光激活瓦解，并与粘弹性流体中的流体流性控制结合。该项目中的光子技术利用了必要的绝对最小能量，可以选择性地将大型烃分子裂解成较小的分子，并且不需要化学添加剂。在实验室规模的研究中，此过程已成功地将生沥青的粘度降低了三个数量级，并增强了美国石油研究所（API）的重力，将原料从固定的复合物分子集合带到了升级的，自由流动的流体状态。非线性光学过程可增强材料的光学吸收，从而使化学键断裂工艺和相关粘度变化的能量利用更好，而与当前行业标准过程相比。该阶段I项目将对实验参数（例如波长，辐射辐射的波长和暴露时间）发展基本理解，以最大程度地提高基本的开裂过程效率并控制优质石油产品所需的基本裂解，芳香性和聚合过程。反过来，获得的基本知识将通过此过程指导商业规模设备的未来开发。