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The presence of relatively high naphthenic acid in crude oil may contribute to the major corrosion in oil pipelines and distillation units in crude oil refineries. Thus, high concentration Naphthenic Acids crude oil is considered tobe of low quality and is marketed at lower prices. In order to overcome this problem, neutralization method had been developed to reduce the TAN value in crude oil. In this study, crude oil from Petronas Penapisan Melaka was investigated. The parameters studied were reagent concentration, catalyst loading, calcination temperature and reusability of the potential catalyst. Basic chemical used were 2- methylimidazole in polyethylene glycol (PEG 600) with concentration 100, 500 and 1000 ppm. Cerium oxide-based catalysts supported onto alumina prepared with different calcination temperatures. The catalyst was characterized by using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Thermogravimetry Analysis-Differential Thermal Gravity (TGA-DTG) to study physical properties of the catalyst. The Ce/Al2O3 catalyst calcined at 1000°C was the best catalyst due to larger surface area formation which lead to increment of active sites thus will boost the catalytic activity. The result showed that the Ce/Al2O3 catalyst meet Petronas requirement as the TAN value reduced to 0.6 mgKOH/g from original TAN value of 4.22 mgKOH/g. The best reduction of TAN was achieved by using catalyst loading of 0.39% and reagent of 1000 ppm.
