Demetallization of bitumen using supercritical carbon dioxide and water

从油砂矿中提取的沥青经过加工和提质以生产合成原油。在沥青加工过程中，沥青中存在较高浓度的金属，特别是V和Ni，会腐蚀设备，堵塞催化剂孔，使催化剂失活，并导致金属负载排放到环境中。因此，沥青脱金属是改善沥青加工工艺的一个重要步骤，以实现可持续的合成原油生产，减少对环境的影响。目前，天然气用于蒸汽辅助重力泄油工艺来回收深埋的沥青。在新提出的工艺中，天然气将用于燃料电池发电。该过程将同时产生纯CO2和水流，可以很容易地通过使用热交换器达到超临界状态。在我们的实验室研究中，这些流在沥青改质过程中显示出优异的结果。本研究的目的是研究沥青在超临界CO2和水作用下的脱金属过程。研究结果将有助于设计更好的沥青改质工艺以获得优质产品，消除/减少对环境和操作的不利影响，并为Millar Western将超临界CO2和水用于可持续回收和利用能源的商业化应用做出重大贡献。

Extracted bitumen from oil sands ore is processed and upgraded to produce synthetic crude oil. Duringprocessing of bitumen, the presence of higher concentration of metals particularly V and Ni in bitumencorrodes equipment, clogs catalyst pores, deactivates catalyst and causes metal-laden emissions to theenvironment. Therefore, demetallization of bitumen is an important step in improving bitumen processing forsustainable synthetic crude oil production with less environmental impact.Currently, natural gas is used to produce steam for steam-assisted gravity drainage process to recover deeplyburied bitumen. In the newly proposed process, natural gas will be used in fuel cell to produce electricity. Theprocess will simultaneously yield pure CO2 and water streams that can easily be brought to a supercritical stateby using heat exchanger. In our laboratory studies, these streams have shown excellent results in the bitumenupgrading process. This proposed study aims to investigate demetallization of bitumen during its upgradingusing supercritical CO2 and water. The research findings will help devise better bitumen upgrading process forquality product, eliminate/reduce adverse environmental and operational effects, and contribute significantly toMillar Western's efforts to commercialize the application of supercritical CO2 and water for sustainablerecovery and utilization of energy resources.