Study of corrosion/erosion and fouling mechanisms in syngas cooler by syngas from asphaltene gasification

阿尔伯塔拥有世界第三大油砂存款，仅次于沙特阿拉伯和委内瑞拉。油砂的产量计划在2020年的10年内从160万桶/日扩大到360万桶/日（1）。油砂生产的这种扩大需要成比例地增加用于从油砂提质沥青的氢生产。氢气通常由天然气的蒸汽重整产生。另一种获得氢气的方法是煤、石油焦或沥青质的气化。由NEXEN运营的长湖设施是油砂蒸汽辅助重力泄油和升级与气化的第一个大规模集成。来自炼油厂的沥青质本身价值不大，用作气化的原料。沥青质具有低于0.5%的灰分含量，具有显著比例的钒和镍化合物沿着一些细石英和粘土。合成气通过合成气冷却器，将显热传递给锅炉给水，产生蒸汽。一些非常细的烟灰和灰颗粒随合成气从气化炉逸出，并在合成气冷却器中引起侵蚀和腐蚀。

Alberta has 3rd largest oil sands deposit in the world next to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The production from oil sands has been planned to expand from 1.6 to 3.6 million barrels/d within 10 years in 2020 (1). Such an expansion in the production of oil sands requires a proportional increase in the hydrogen production for upgrading of bitumen from oil sands. Hydrogen is usually produced from steam reforming of natural gas. An alternative to obtain hydrogen is from gasification of coal pet-coke or asphaltenes. The Long Lake facility, operated by NEXEN, is the first large-scale integration of oil sands Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage and Upgrader with gasification. Asphaltene from the upgrader, of not much value as such, is used as the feedstock for gasification. The asphaltenes have an ash content below 0.5%, with significant proportions of vanadium and nickel compounds along with some fine quartz and clays. The syngas passes through a syngas cooler for the transfer of sensible heat to boiler feed water to produce steam. Some very fine soot and ash particles escape with syngas from the gasifier and cause erosion and corrosion in syngas cooler.