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

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发一种革命性的新技术，用于提升和降低沥青（油砂原料）的粘度。沥青是美国重质原油的主要来源，但粘度比传统原油高10，000 - 100，000倍，要求生产商在运输到炼油厂之前使用高挥发性和昂贵的添加剂（稀释剂）降低其粘度。这一要求增加了每桶9 -14美元的成本，并消耗了宝贵的运输能力（稀释剂占据了每桶原料沥青的三分之一），从而加剧了对额外铁路/管道运输能力的需求。这个第一阶段项目将开发一种新的、正在申请专利的、基于激光的工艺的基础知识，该工艺最近已经证明，在不使用稀释剂或其他化学品的情况下，沥青粘度显著降低。 这一努力是将该工艺商业化并实现交钥匙设备供加拿大及其他地区的沥青生产商使用的关键一步。据估计，通过这一工艺处理10万桶/日（BPD），每年可为生产商节省约4亿美元。 如果实施，这一过程也将大大降低与稀释剂运输相关的环境风险。该项目的智力价值在于使用非线性光学多光子吸收过程的化学键的光活化分解，再加上粘弹性流体中的流体流变学控制。该项目中的光子技术利用选择性地将大碳氢化合物分子裂解成较小分子所需的绝对最小能量，并且不需要化学添加剂。在实验室规模的研究中，该方法已成功地将原料沥青的粘度降低了三个数量级，并提高了美国石油协会（API）的比重，使原料从不动的复杂分子系综变为升级的自由流动的流体状态。非线性光学过程提供了材料中增强的光吸收，因此与热减粘裂化（当前的工业标准过程）相比，导致化学键断裂过程和相关粘度变化的更好的能量利用。第一阶段项目将对实验参数（如光辐射的波长、辐照度和曝光时间）有基本的了解，这些参数是最大限度地提高基本裂解过程效率和控制优质石油产品所需的烷基化、芳香化和聚合过程所必需的。反过来，所获得的基础知识将指导该工艺的商业规模设备的未来开发。

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.