(HC)3 Hydrocracking Technology

Abstract

Introduction Refineries are processing bottoms and heavy oils to lighter products using either thermal cracking base technologies such as visbreaking, delayed and fluid coking, or solid catalyst base low to moderate hydroconversion technologies using fixed bed and ebullated bed reactors. Unconverted resid from ebullated bed reactor has also been fed to delayed coker to increase the distillates yield. These processes perform well for what they are designed to do. With the new fuel specifications of 10–50 parts per million sulfur restriction in transportation fuels, distillates produced from low conversion fixed bed and ebullated bed hydroprocessing will not meet the required ultra low sulfur content without further hydrotreating. For distillates produced from delayed and fluid coking, even more severe secondary processing is needed to reduce the aromatic and sulfur contents in order to meet the new fuel regulations. In light of the current high crude price, general decline in crude quality, and regulations mandated high quality, ultra low sulfur specifications for the transportation fuels, significant advantages exist for flexible technology that can overcome limitations of current bottoms of the barrel upgrading processes. The Alberta Government formed the Alberta Oil Sands Technology Research Authority (AOSTRA) in the 1970'sto fund research and development of technologies to improve the economics of producing synthetic crude oil from its vast reserves of heavy oils and oil sands. These research programs provided new insight on the molecular structure of heavy oil, the chemistry of the various non-volatile fractions, especially on their tendency to form carbonaceous solids (coke) during upgrading. In the mid-1990's researchers at the Alberta Research Council (ARC) and AOSTRA developed a new upgrading technology called (HC)3™, a hydro-conversion process that is designed to efficiently convert bottoms and residua rich in metals and asphaltenes to lighter products. In 2001, Headwaters Heavy Oil, Inc. (HHO), obtained a worldwide exclusive license from the Alberta Science and Research Authority (ASRA) to commercialize and market the (HC)3™ hydrocracking technology. The This paper describes the (HC)3™ technology, itsapplications to improve operations at existingsupported catalyst hydroprocessing facilities and as a stand alone hydrocracker. (HC)3TM Hydrocracking Process The (HC)3™ Hydrocracking Process is a patented catalytic hydroconversion technology operating at relatively moderate temperatures and pressures, and at relatively high space velocity using parts per million (ppm) concentration of a liquid catalyst to actively transfer hydrogen and removes sulfur atom. In the (HC)3™process scheme shown in Figure 1, fresh resid, liquid catalyst precursor, and hydrogen are fed to a backmixed bubble column hydrocracking reactor. Reactor effluent and the virgin distillates are sent to separators, atmospheric and vacuum distillation towers to recover hydrogen, hydrocarbon gases, light liquid products, and unconverted 525ºC+ resid. Greater than 99% of the feed metals and the (HC)3™ catalyst are retained in the unconverted residuum. Recycling the unconverted vacuum bottoms to the reactor inherently recycles the (HC)3™ catalyst and reduces the amount of fresh catalyst precursor fed to the reactor. The unconverted residue may be used to generate hydrogen in a gasifier or burned for process heat. The fractionated liquid products along with the virgin distillates are sent for secondary processing in a conventional hydrocracker / hydrotreater facilities which may be directly integrated with the hydrocracking reactor, or stand-alone depending on existing infrastructure to produce ultra low sulfur liquid fuels and feedstock for downstream refining units.

Novel Deep Eutectic Solvent-Dissolved Molybdenum Oxide Catalyst for the Upgrading of Heavy Crude Oil

“…Its presence in the produced solid samples after the upgrading process is an indication of its generation in situ. Many researchers have reported that MoS 2 can be transformed in situ from relevant molybdenum precursors under conditions similar to those used in this study, in sulfur-containing crude oils. ,,− The sulfide was generated after decomposition of DES/MoO 3 to give dispersed and reactive MoO 3 , which was subsequently sulfided by the sulfur in the oil. The precise mechanism of this transformation is still unclear, but direct reduction of the salt by hydrogen sulfide seems probable. ,,, The presence of four different reflections attributable to MoS 2 versus one for MoO 2 with no characteristic peak of MoO 3 is an indication of the good sulfiding behavior of the precursor.…”