Low-cost process of converting asphaltene into valuable graphene-like materials

油砂行业沥青提炼或改质过程中产生的沥青质残留量通常极低或为零。沥青烯是由稠合芳环、环烷环和脂肪链组成的一类分子。沥青质增值的传统智慧是将沥青质分子分解成较轻的组分用于燃料应用，这是一个资本密集型过程，会产生相当大的温室气体排放。相反，拟议的项目旨在开发一种绿色、可扩展和经济的工艺，将从沥青中分离出来的沥青质转化为市场价值高达50美元/克的类石墨烯碳纳米材料。作为制造碳材料的原料，沥青质中的芳香族核成为一个基本优势：它最大限度地减少了形成石墨化结构时的C-C键重构要求。该项目开发的拟议中的沥青质“提质”技术将为加拿大油砂行业提供高附加值的沥青质解决方案。与广泛使用的化学气相沉积(CVD)法和石墨剥离法相比，拟议研究的成功部署使大规模生产类石墨烯碳的成本大大降低。

Asphaltenes rejected in bitumen extraction or upgrading processes in oil sands industry usually has extremely low or zero value. Asphaltenes are a class of molecules consisting of condensed aromatic rings, naphthenic rings and aliphatic chains. A traditional wisdom of value -adds for asphaltene is to break the asphaltene molecules into lighter fractions for fuel application, which is capital intensive process and generates considerable GHG emissions. Instead, the proposed project is aimed to develop a green, scalable and economic process of converting asphaltenes separated from bitumen into graphene-like carbon nanomaterials with a market value up to ~$50/g. As feedstock to make carbon materials, the aromatic nucleus in asphaltene become an essential advantage: it minimizes the C-C bonds reconstruction requirements in the formation of the graphitic structure. The proposed asphaltene "upgrading" technology developed in the project will provide Canada's oil sands industry with a high value-added solution of asphaltene. The successful deployment of proposed research enables the large-scale production of graphene-like carbons at significantly lower cost compared to the widely used chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method and graphite-exfoliation method.