Reaction kinetics and particle agglomeration studies in support of heavy oil and bio-oil upgrading

常规原油储量的减少导致非常规资源的产量增加，如加拿大油砂中的沥青和生物质转化的燃料。在加拿大，使用现有技术估计可从油砂中开采1680亿桶，而世界各地越来越多的生物燃料研究反映了由于温室气体排放、能源多样化的优势和传统化石燃料储量下降而引起的环境问题。与传统燃料相比，由生物质转化过程产生的生物油具有以下较差的性质：较高的氧含量、降低的热值、较大的粘度和化学不稳定性。沥青和生物油都需要升级工艺来生产与从常规原油中获得的那些类似的有价值的燃料和化学品。 转向重油和渣油改质使得它相关的推进流化床反应器中的颗粒团聚的理解。颗粒间液体桥接已知发生在流化焦化器中，并且可能发生在加氢处理器中，其中两个反应器目前都用于重油和渣油改质。颗粒团聚减少了传热和传质，增加了反应器结垢，并可能导致去流化。通过仔细选择连续液相和分散液相，可以降低相关相物理性质（例如，液体粘度、颗粒尺寸、分散液体浓度、颗粒润湿性）对淤浆鼓泡塔构造中的附聚严重性和总体流体动力学的影响将被研究。这些实验研究将提供预测能力和缓解策略，在升级反应器中的团聚体形成。 一个平行和互补的目标是研究通过热解产生的生物油的加氢脱氧动力学。先前的生物油提质途径发生在高温（300至500°C）、高氢气压力（5至20 MPa）下，并且通常在催化剂存在下，因此与加氢处理具有相似性。固定床改质系统已被初步研究，其中通常报道的问题是催化剂中毒、焦炭形成和反应器堵塞。将对流化配置进行评估，以解决这些问题，因为它具有改进的混合特性和半连续催化剂添加/去除的潜力。将使用独特的流化和感应加热微反应器研究反应动力学以确定最佳反应条件（即，温度、氢气压力、催化剂尺寸和组成）。在流化配置中生物油加氢脱氧的有前途的动力学数据可能会导致创新升级反应器的规模扩大，这是未来生物炼制中生物燃料生产的必要加工步骤。

Diminishing conventional crude oil reserves have led to increased production from unconventional resources, such as bitumen from the Canadian oil sands and fuels converted from biomass. In Canada, an estimated 168 billion barrels are recoverable from the oil sands using available technologies, while increasing biofuel research throughout the world reflects environmental concerns due to greenhouse gas emissions, advantages of energy diversification, and declining conventional fossil fuel reserves. Bio-oils produced from biomass conversion processes have the following inferior properties compared to conventional fuels: higher oxygen content, reduced heating value, greater viscosity, and chemical instability. Both bitumen and bio-oils require upgrading processes to produce valuable fuels and chemicals similar to those obtained from conventional crude oils. The shift to heavy oil and residue upgrading makes it pertinent to advance the understanding of particle agglomeration in fluidized bed reactors. Interparticle liquid bridging is known to occur in Fluid Cokers and potentially in hydroprocessors, where both reactors are currently used for heavy oil and residue upgrading. Particle agglomeration reduces heat and mass transfer, augments reactor fouling, and can lead to defluidization. By carefully selecting the continuous and dispersed liquid phases, the impacts of relevant phase physical properties (e.g., liquid viscosities, particle size, dispersed liquid concentration, particle wettability) on agglomeration severity and the overall fluid dynamics in a slurry bubble column configurations will be investigated. These experimental studies will provide predictive capabilities and mitigation strategies for agglomerate formation in upgrading reactors. A parallel and complementary objective is to study the hydrodeoxygenation kinetics of bio-oils produced via pyrolysis. The previous bio-oil upgrading pathway occurs at elevated temperatures (300 to 500°C), high hydrogen pressures (5 to 20 MPa), and typically in the presence of a catalyst, consequently sharing similarities with hydroprocessing. Fixed bed upgrading systems have been primarily studied, where commonly reported issues are catalyst poisoning, coke formation, and reactor plugging. A fluidized configuration will be evaluated to address these concerns due to the improved mixing characteristics and the potential for semi-continuous catalyst addition/removal. Reaction kinetics will be investigated using a unique fluidized and induction heated microreactor to identify the optimal reaction conditions (i.e., temperature, hydrogen pressure, catalyst size and composition). Promising kinetic data for bio-oil hydrodeoxygenation in a fluidized configuration could lead to the scale-up of an innovative upgrading reactor, a necessary processing step for biofuel production in future biorefineries.