Demetallization of bitumen using supercritical carbon dioxide and water

从油砂矿石中提取的沥青经过加工和提质后，可以生产合成原油。在沥青加工过程中，沥青中存在浓度较高的金属，特别是V和Ni，会堵塞催化剂气孔，使催化剂失活，并对环境造成大量金属排放。因此，沥青脱金属是改善沥青加工工艺，以实现可持续、低环境影响的合成原油生产的重要步骤。目前，利用天然气产生蒸汽，用于蒸汽辅助重力排水工艺回收深埋沥青。在新提出的工艺中，天然气将用于燃料电池发电。该过程将同时产生纯净的二氧化碳和水流，通过使用热交换器可以很容易地将其带入超临界状态。在我们的实验室研究中，这些溪流在沥青改质过程中表现出了出色的效果。这项拟议的研究旨在研究沥青在使用超临界二氧化碳和水进行升级过程中的脱金属情况。研究成果将有助于设计出更好的沥青升级工艺，以提高产品的质量，消除/减少对环境和运营的不利影响，并为米勒西部公司将超临界二氧化碳和水的商业化应用以实现能源的可持续回收和利用做出重大贡献。

Extracted bitumen from oil sands ore is processed and upgraded to produce synthetic crude oil. Duringprocessing of bitumen, the presence of higher concentration of metals particularly V and Ni in bitumencorrodes equipment, clogs catalyst pores, deactivates catalyst and causes metal-laden emissions to theenvironment. Therefore, demetallization of bitumen is an important step in improving bitumen processing forsustainable synthetic crude oil production with less environmental impact.Currently, natural gas is used to produce steam for steam-assisted gravity drainage process to recover deeplyburied bitumen. In the newly proposed process, natural gas will be used in fuel cell to produce electricity. Theprocess will simultaneously yield pure CO2 and water streams that can easily be brought to a supercritical stateby using heat exchanger. In our laboratory studies, these streams have shown excellent results in the bitumenupgrading process. This proposed study aims to investigate demetallization of bitumen during its upgradingusing supercritical CO2 and water. The research findings will help devise better bitumen upgrading process forquality product, eliminate/reduce adverse environmental and operational effects, and contribute significantly toMillar Western's efforts to commercialize the application of supercritical CO2 and water for sustainablerecovery and utilization of energy resources.