Hydrovisbreaking of vacuum residue from Russian Export Blend: influence of brown coal, light cycle oil, or naphtha addition

Demand for high-value petroleum products is increasing and crude oils and their distillation products are becoming heavier. The thermal cracking of a vacuum residue (VR) from REB (Russian Export Blend) crude oil was carried out in an autoclave. LCO (light cycle oil), naphtha, and brown coal (BC) were added with the aim of studying their effect on the final products composition. The elemental analysis (%C, %N, %H, %S) was performed and dynamic viscosity, density, GC of gases (“Refinery Gas Analysis”), solubility in hexane and toluene, and simulated distillation were examined in raw materials, gaseous, and liquid products. As anticipated, due to its high aromatics content, the addition of LCO proved the best option, obtaining the highest yield of lighter liquids. The naphtha addition resulted in a slight increment of heavier products in the gaseous phase and higher yields to solids. The literature does not contain any extensive studies of the addition of BC to VR in the hydrovisbreaking process. The addition of BC resulted in an increment in the yield of the gaseous product and assumed the highest relative total consumption of hydrogen during the reaction.