In-Situ Reaction Monitoring and Characterization Using Light Scattering Techniques

重油升级是一个世界性的问题，俄罗斯、沙特阿拉伯、委内瑞拉和加拿大的主要产油国。加拿大在这一领域处于世界领先地位，来自世界各地的公司都将目光投向了艾伯塔省的长期经验。所有这些重油都需要升级，才能用于传统炼油厂。扩大加拿大的升级能力是为一种主要产品增加价值的一个主要问题。新建炼油厂的巨额资本成本限制了我们升级能力的扩张。不幸的是，升级方面的创新很少，主要是由于原料的复杂性和困难的反应条件。我的研究计划是开发新的工具、技术和理解，以改进在重油、可再生燃料和催化系统加工中经常发现的复杂系统的化学加工。更深入地了解将重油转化为产品的反应将为商业技术开辟新的途径。最终，我们的目标是继续开发可用于工业规模反应堆的在线控制和优化技术。在重油改质的情况下，这项工作的目标是开发工具，以确定在反应非常早期阶段发生的化学变化的速度，并利用原料油中悬浮的亚微米颗粒的光散射及其在热裂化和加氢反应期间的变化来量化各向异性中间相和各向同性焦炭的形成。这项研究将提供一种快速、定量的现场方法来测量这些过程中的结焦动力学。为了实现这一目标，主要重点将包括改进用于原位观察反应现象的微型反应堆，开发一种量化石油系统中常见的亚微米反应区域的方法，开发用于跟踪化学成分和催化剂状态的原位拉曼光谱技术(用于均相催化剂)，以及实时分析反应过程中亚微米颗粒的分布。全球石油供应正慢慢变得越来越重，加工难度也越来越大。加拿大有一个明显的优势，那就是我们有世代使用这些油的经验；世界各地的公司都在向加拿大寻求专业知识，以了解如何处理这些困难的饲料。加拿大主导的一代新工具用于分析和表征这些高度复杂的系统，这将有助于扩大加拿大研究在世界各地的认知度。将动力学、传质和化学研究结合在一起的工具将产生该过程的详细现象学模型，该模型将允许测试产生最大产量和改进产品质量的新工艺选择，并且在环境上是可持续的。

Heavy oil is upgrading is a worldwide issue with major producers in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Canada. Canada is a world leader in this area and companies from around the world look to Alberta for it's long experience. All of this heavy oil requires upgrading before it can be used in conventional refineries. Expanding Canada's upgrading capacity is a major issue to add value to a major product. The large capital cost of new refineries has limited expansion of our upgrading capacity. Unfortunately, there has been very little innovation in upgrading, mainly due to the complexity of the feeds and difficult reaction conditions. My research program is the development of new tools, techniques, and understanding to improve the chemical processing of the complex systems that are often found in the processing of heavy oils, renewable fuels and catalytic systems. Deeper understanding of the reactions that transform heavy oil to products will open new pathways for commercial technologies. Ultimately, the goal is to continue to develop techniques that can be used with industrial scale reactors for on-line control and optimization. In the case of heavy oil upgrading, the objective of this work is to generate tools to determine the rate of chemical changes that occur during very early stages of reactions and to quantify anisotropic mesophase and isotropic coke formation using light scattering of suspended sub-micron particles in the feed oil and their changes during thermal cracking and hydrogenation reactions. This research would provide a rapid and quantitative in-situ approach to gauge the dynamics of coke formation in these processes. To achieve this goal, the main focus will involve improved microreacotrs for in-situ observations of reacting phenomena, the development of a method of quantification of sub-micron reacting domains that are common in petroleum systems, the development of in-situ Raman spectroscopy techniques for the tracking of chemical composition and catalyst state (for homogeneous catalysts), and the real-time analysis of sub-micron particle distributions during reactions. The worldwide supplies of oil are slowly getting heavier and more difficult to process. Canada has a clear advantage in that we have experience of working with these oils for generations; companies from around the world look to Canada for expertise in understanding how to handle these difficult feeds. The Canadian led generation of new tools to analyze and characterize these highly complex systems will help expand the recognition of Canadian research around the world. Tools that couple the study of kinetics, mass transfer and chemistry will yield detailed phenomenological models of the process that will allow for the testing of new processing options that produce maximum yields with improved product quality and are environmentally sustainable.