Co-processing heavy oils with Fischer-Tropsch syncrude

该项目提案涉及油砂沥青（重油）和费托合成法生产的合成油的共处理。 这种类型的协处理以前没有研究过。 它将说明为什么这种特定的组合对加拿大工业有利，以及为什么这项工作可能导致改进。油砂沥青占加拿大国内生产总值的6- 7%。 将沥青推向市场的主要挑战之一是其流动性差（粘度高）-它具有太妃糖的流动特性。 这是由于沥青中缺乏轻质材料和沥青的高表观分子量。 沥青的流动性主要通过两种方式得到改善：用25- 30%的汽油范围材料稀释沥青以生产稀释沥青（Dilbit），或者在高温下转化沥青以降低表观分子量并生产合成原油（SCO）。**虽然加拿大沥青生产商目前没有安装费托装置，但有充分的理由可以考虑在未来安装费托装置。 （a）FT油是轻质汽油原料的良好来源。 目前，加拿大每天进口约1700万升汽油原料，以满足稀释沥青生产的需求。(b)目前工业上用于将沥青升级为SCO的高温工艺也产生低价值的碳产品。 这些低价值的碳产品可以气化，以生产可用于生产FT油的进料。* (c)在FT油的生产过程中，释放了大量的热量。 这种能量可以用来产生蒸汽，而不是燃烧天然气来产生等量的热量。 这些蒸汽又可用于从油砂中生产沥青。**该提案具体涉及重油和FT油的共处理。 加拿大工业界自行对重油进行升级。 还有一些行业对FT石油进行升级。 目前还没有同时处理重油和FT油的综合设施的实例。 这些材料的反应性、相行为和化学性质存在显著差异。 理解并利用这些差异使双方受益，是创新的挑战和机遇。我们想要遵循的方法是从根本上了解重油和FT油共处理过程中相互作用的性质和程度。 该建议仅限于通过温和的热转化的共处理的调查。 该计划旨在吸引工业资金，将研究扩展到其他转换过程。 ** 技术说明：在热转化过程中，分子之间的氢交换和反应分子稳定的方式影响液体产率。 重油富含喜欢交换氢以产生轻质气体产物和固体焦炭的物质，这减少了更有价值的液体产物的量。 我们最近的一些研究（Energy Fuels 2013，27，3061-3070）表明，共处理FT油与重油可能是有益的。 FT油还抗焦化（De Klerk，A.“Fischer-Tropsch refining”，Wiley-VCH，2011）。 这是开发重质油与FT油共加工改进工艺的关键。 研究目标是跟踪热转化过程中的氢再分布，以便对过程化学有基本的了解。

The project proposal deals with co-processing of oilsands bitumen (heavy oil) and synthetic oil produced by Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis. This type of co-processing has not been studied before. It will be shown why this specific combination holds advantages for Canadian industry, as well as why the work may lead to an improvement.**Oilsands bitumen contributes 6-7 % of the gross domestic product of Canada. One of the major challenges in getting the bitumen to market is its poor fluidity (high viscosity) - it has the flow properties of toffee. This is due to the lack of light material in the bitumen and the high apparent molecular weight of bitumen. Bitumen fluidity is improved in mainly two ways: the bitumen is diluted with 25-30 % gasoline range material to produce diluted bitumen (Dilbit), or the bitumen is converted at high temperature to reduce the apparent molecular weight and produce Synthetic Crude Oil (SCO).**Although Canadian bitumen producers do not currently have Fischer-Tropsch units installed, there are good reasons why this may be considered in future. Some of the advantages are:*(a) FT oil is a good source of light gasoline-range material. Presently Canada imports around 17 million liters per day of gasoline-range material just to satisfy the needs for diluted bitumen production.*(b) High temperature processes currently used by industry to upgrade bitumen to SCO also produce low value carbon products. These low value carbon products can be gasified to produce feed that can be used to produce FT oil.*(c) During the production of FT oil a lot of heat is released. This energy can be used to produce steam, instead of burning natural gas to produce the equivalent amount of heat. The steam can in turn be used in the production of bitumen from oilsands.**This proposal deals specifically with co-processing of heavy oil and FT oil. Heavy oil is upgraded on its own by Canadian industry. There are also industries that upgrade FT oil. There are no examples of integrated facilities that co-process heavy oil and FT oil. There are marked differences in reactivity, phase behavior and chemistry of these materials. Understanding and using these differences to benefit both, is a challenge and an opportunity for innovation.**The approach that we want to follow is to fundamentally understand the nature and extent of the interactions during co-processing of heavy oil and FT oil. This proposal is limited to an investigation of the co-processing by mild thermal conversion. The plan is to attract industrial funding to expand the study to other conversion processes too. **Technical description: During thermal conversion, hydrogen exchange between molecules and the way in which the reacting molecules are stabilized, affect liquid yield. The heavy oil is rich in species that like to exchange hydrogen to produce light gaseous products and solid coke, which reduces the amount of the more valuable liquid product. Some of our recent research (Energy Fuels 2013, 27, 3061-3070) indicated that there may be a benefit to co-process FT oil with heavy oil. FT oil is also resistant to coking (De Klerk, A. "Fischer-Tropsch refining", Wiley-VCH, 2011). This is the key to develop an improved process by co-processing the heavy oil with FT oil. The research objective is to track hydrogen redistribution during thermal conversion, so that a fundamental understanding of the process chemistry can be developed.