Co-processing heavy oils with Fischer-Tropsch syncrude

该项目建议书涉及油砂沥青(重油)和费托合成生产的合成油的共同加工。这种类型的协同处理以前从未被研究过。它将展示为什么这种特定的组合对加拿大工业具有优势，以及为什么这项工作可能会带来改善。**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流动性差(高粘度)--它具有太妃糖的流动特性。这是因为沥青中缺乏轻质材料，而且沥青的表观分子量很高。改善沥青流动性的方法主要有两种：用25%-30%的汽油原料稀释沥青以生产稀释沥青(Dilbit)，或者将沥青在高温下转化以降低表观分子量并生产合成原油(SCO)。**尽管加拿大沥青生产商目前没有安装费托装置，但有充分的理由在未来考虑这一点。其中一些优点是：*(A)FT油是一种很好的轻质汽油原料来源。目前，加拿大每天进口约1700万升汽油系列材料，仅满足稀释沥青生产的需要。*(B)目前工业用来将沥青升级为SCO的高温工艺也生产低值碳产品。这些低值碳产品可以被气化来生产可用于生产FT油的原料。*(C)在FT油生产过程中会释放大量热量。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。蒸汽可以反过来用于从油砂中生产沥青。**这项提议专门针对重油和FT油的联合加工。重油由加拿大工业自行升级。也有一些行业在升级FT石油。目前还没有联合加工重油和FT油的综合设施的例子。这些材料在反应性、相行为和化学方面都有明显的差异。理解并利用这些差异对双方都有利，这是一个挑战，也是一个创新的机会。**我们希望遵循的方法是从根本上了解重油和FT油共同加工过程中相互作用的性质和程度。这项建议仅限于通过温和的热转化进行共处理的研究。该计划是为了吸引产业资金，将这项研究扩展到其他转换过程。**技术描述：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量。重油富含喜欢交换氢气以产生轻质气态产品和固体焦炭的物种，这减少了更有价值的液体产品的数量。我们最近的一些研究(Energy Fuels 2013，27,3061-3070)表明，将FT油与重油共同加工可能会有好处。FT油也耐焦化(de Klerk，A.“费托精炼”，Wiley-Vch，2011年)。这是通过与FT油共加工重油来开发改进工艺的关键。研究的目标是跟踪热转化过程中氢的再分配，以便对过程化学有一个基本的了解。

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.