Flash processing of asphaltic residual oil

Inactive Publication Date: 2010-03-11
LINDE LLC
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  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012]The combustion jet produced by the expansion of combustion gases through a convergent-divergent nozzle, also known as de Laval-type nozzle. The reactant residence time above 425° C. is less than 400 milliseconds, preferably less than 100 milliseconds, most preferably less than 50 milliseconds. Since asphaltic carbonaceous materials, i.e. heptane insoluble species are most the problematic species for conventional refinery unit operations, the present invention focuses on removal of asphaltic materials. The asphaltic carbonaceous materials can be removed from a residual oil by heating the reactants to the minimum temperature required to vaporize the heptane soluble species with the minimum residence time required for vaporization to produce deasphalted oil and asphaltic heavy oil products with minimum degradation due to thermal cracking. The asphaltic heavy oil product yield can be substantially reduced, with minimum gas and light distillate yield, by increasing the reactant temperature, while maintaining the minimum practical residence time above 425° C. The asphaltic heavy oil yield may be further decreased by partial hydrogenation of the residual oil feed and operating with a higher reactant temperature, while maintaining the minimum practical residence time above 425° C.
[0023]The combustion gas is produced by reacting an oxidant with a fuel wherein the fuel is selected from the group consisting of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, gaseous hydrocarbons and mixtures thereof and the oxidant is selected from the group consisting of air, oxygen-enriched air and substantially pure oxygen. Steam may also be used to control combustion temperature, discourage coke formation, and simplify recovery product recovery system.
[0026]In the methods of the present invention, the inertial device may be a cyclone. The reactant residence time above 425° C. is less than 400 milliseconds. A liquid distillate quench may be employed to rapidly cool the vapor phase and liquid phase reactants. In some instance, the liquid distillate quench is atomized. A purge gas may be employed to minimize liquid distillate quench loss in the heavy oil product and this purge gas is preferably steam.

Problems solved by technology

Not only do such processes increase the yields of the more valuable liquid and gaseous products, but more compact designs would also decrease capital costs.
However, none of these processes fully meet all these criteria while treating asphaltic residual oils.
The FCC feed nozzles improve the uniformity of the initial contact between the carbonaceous feed and the hot regenerated catalyst, which increases the feed heating rate and decreases the yield of the undesirable dry gas and coke FCC produces.
The higher coke yield associated with more asphaltic residual FCC feeds has a large adverse effect on the process performance.
Canadian Patent No. 2,369,288 teaches thermal cracking of residual oil feed with inert solids in an FCC reactor-type short contact time reactor to eliminate catalyst deactivation problems, but also results in an inferior product yield distribution, including coke production in excess of the process heat requirement.
Despite these efforts to decrease the FCC process coke yield with residual asphaltic feeds, the coke yield far exceeds the amount required to preheat the regenerated catalyst or inert solids.
Since both the fluid coking and FCC processes require that all liquid products are produced by vaporization, neither process can operate with a short residence time for unconverted asphaltic residual oils.
In addition, the solvent and residual oil separation steps have a significant steam heat requirement.
Unfortunately, the earlier processes do not provide any method that can heat the bitumen feed, separate the deasphalted oil and asphaltene products, and cool the separated deasphalted oil and asphaltene products sufficiently rapidly to avoid excessive thermal cracking and degradation of the deasphalted oil product.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,535 identifies a fundamental limitation with this approach.
These high temperature and short contact time benefits seem to be only limited by the practical limits on the feed heating rate and the product cooling rate.

Method used

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  • Flash processing of asphaltic residual oil
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  • Flash processing of asphaltic residual oil

Examples

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example 1

[0041]This example illustrates the use of the flash processing method to produce a deasphalted oil product from a typical oil sand bitumen and with sufficient by-product steam for bitumen production using the SAGD process. In this example, the oil sand bitumen feed rate is 33.5 metric tons per hour. The combustion chamber fuel requirement is 1.7 metric tons per hour of the light oil product. The combustion chamber was operated at a pressure of 5.3 bar. The combustion gas has a temperature of 2000° C. with a 10% oxygen deficiency. The conical convergent divergent nozzle has a residual oil feed—gas jet angle of 60 degrees and a throat area of 130 cm2. The reactants have an average temperature of about 540° C. and a pressure of 2.2 bar. The cyclone separator has a 14×29 cm feed conduit, cylindrical section diameter of 58 cm and height of 36 cm, gas exit diameter of 29 cm and height of 36 cm, a pressure atomizer with quench liquid flow rate of 24.4 metric tons per hour, light oil temper...

example 2

[0042]Example 2 uses the equipment described in the first Example 1 to convert asphaltenes species to deasphalted oil and heavy distillates with minimum production of gaseous and coke precursor species. 23 kilograms per hour of a 535° C.+oil sand vacuum resid, with an asphaltene convent of about 33 wt %, is dosed with 1000 ppm of a molybdenum sulfide colloidal catalyst and blended with 10.4 kilograms / hour of heavy oil recycle, hydrotreated in an ebullated hydrotreater at 100 bar for sufficient liquid residence time to add roughly 640 SCF / bbl of hydrogen to the resid. 3 kilograms / hour of a natural gas fuel are oxidized at 5.3 bar pressure with an oxidant comprising 11.3 kilograms / hour of substantially pure oxygen with a steam diluent to oxygen weight ratio of 1.2:1. The resulting combustion gas is expanded from 5.3 bar to 2.2 bar through a conical convergent-divergent nozzle and contacted with the partially hydrogenated vacuum resid and recycle heavy oil. This procedure achieves a ma...

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Abstract

A method to upgrade virgin and partially hydrogenated asphaltic residual oils by utilizing hot, high velocity combustion gas jets to rapidly atomize and heat the residual oil, maintaining the reactant temperature required to achieve the desired residual oil conversion with the minimum practical residence time, rapidly separating vapor and liquid reactants, and rapidly cooling the vapor and liquid products. The minimum required temperature and practical residence time are used for the production of deasphalted oil and asphaltene products with minimum degradation due to thermal cracking. The maximum conversion of residual oil may be substantially increased by combining a portion of the heavy oil product with the residual oil feed and partially hydrogenating this mixture.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]The general field of this invention is high temperature and short contact time processing of asphaltic residual oil. More specifically, this invention is a flash process method to remove asphaltic species from residual oils.[0002]A recent review article [Hulet (2005)] examined the key features and configurations of short residence time cracking processes developed over the past 25 years. This work succinctly summarized the promise, key features, and challenges of short residence time processes: “There is a strong economic incentive for considering short residence time cracking processes. Not only do such processes increase the yields of the more valuable liquid and gaseous products, but more compact designs would also decrease capital costs. Careful control of the vapor residence times appears to be crucial in order to prevent secondary cracking and yet allow for maximum cracking of the feedstock. Rapid and thorough mixing of the feedstock with the h...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): C10C3/06C10C3/02
CPCC10G31/06C10G67/02C10G45/60
InventorSATCHELL, JR., DONALD PRENTICE
OwnerLINDE LLC