Exergy analysis of an atmospheric residue desulphurization hydrotreating process for a crude oil refinery

The exhaustion of petroleum reserves and the declining supply of conventional feedstock have forced refineries to use heavier crude oil in their production. Removing the undesirable components containing sulphur and metals in the atmospheric residue (AR) fraction requires extensive catalytic hydrotreating (HT) atmospheric residue desulphurization (ARDS) process. In this work, we endeavour to collect and present a comprehensive dataset to develop and simulate the ARDS HT model. This model is then used for an exergetic analysis to evaluate the performance of the ARDS HT model regarding the exergy destruction, the location of losses and exergetic efficiency. The massive exergy destruction is caused by significant differences in chemical exergy of source and product streams during separations, fractionation and reactions. The exergy destruction in the equipment independent of chemical exergies such as heat exchangers, pumps and compressors is relatively low. This exergetic analysis revealed that the majority of the processing equipment in the ARDS HT process performed satisfactorily. However, the remaining equipment requires improvement for its performance in regards to exergetic efficiency or/and avoidable exergetic losses. To enhance the efficiency of the equipment that is intensive in terms of exergy and energy use, the use of clean and high purity renewable hydrogen and several process rectification is proposed.

A technology for multifunctional hydroprocessing of oil residues (vacuum residue and atmospheric residue) on the catalysts with hierarchical porosity

A technology for catalytic hydroprocessing of oil residues – atmospheric residue and vacuum residue – aimed to obtain high value added petrochemicals, particularly marine fuel complying with modern technical and environmental requirements, is reported. The technologyis based on the use of catalysts supported on alumina with a hierarchical structure of meso- and macropores, which are highly active and stable under severe conditions of the process. Data obtained by physicochemical analysis of the chemical composition, textural and phase properties of fresh and spent catalysts for the three-step hydroprocessing of atmospheric residue and vacuum residue are presented. A material balance for each step of the processes and a comprehensive analysis of the properties of produced petrochemicals were used to propose variants of implementing and integrating the technology at Russian oil refineries in order to increase the profit from oil refining. The introduction of the hydroprocessing of atmospheric residue at oil refineries without secondary processes will improve the economic efficiency due to selling the atmospheric residue by 84–170 % depending on a chosen scheme of the process and a required set of products. It is reasonable to integrate the catalytic hydroprocessing of vacuum residue with the delayed coking, catalytic cracking and hydrocracking processes in order to increase the depth of refining to 95 % and extend the production of marketable oil refining products: gasoline, diesel fuel, marine fuel with the sulfur content below 0.5 %, and low-sulfur refinery coke for the electrode industry. The integration of the hydroprocessing of vacuum residue with the secondary processes will increase the economic efficiency from selling the vacuum residue by a factor of 2–2.5 in comparison with its production in delayed coking units.

Comparison of coking additives obtained from different types of oil stock

Coke producers often face a shortage of valuable grades of coals, i.e. coking coals. This paper examines the possibility to obtain a coking additive by applying delayed coking to various types of heavy petroleum residues. The paper also gives a comparative description. Five types of heavy petroleum residue from the KINEF oil refinery were used in the experiments that aimed to produce carbon material. They included vacuum residue ELOU-AVT-6, vacuum residue S-1000 resultant from the hydrocracking process, visbreaker bottoms from the S-3000 unit, and two mixtures of the ELOU-AVT-6 unit products: a mixture of vacuum residue and third vacuum cut; and a mixture of vacuum residue, third vacuum cut and atmospheric residue. The carbon material obtained from all the above types of raw materials was analyzed for quality; an X-ray diffraction analysis was carried out; and the interplanar spacings d002 and d110 were calculated, as well as the linear sizes of Lc and La crystallites. The coking additive obtained instead of the typical petroleum coke was found to meet the specification. Thus, the volatile matter content in it is within the range from 15 to 25 wt%. This additive can be used in steel production instead of coking coal. The coking additive from a mixture of vacuum residue, third vacuum cut and atmospheric residue has the highest content of volatile matter (19.30%), while the coking additive from the visbreaking residue from the S-3000 has the lowest volatile matter content (16.15%). The latter is due to the fact that the primary petroleum material was subjected to light thermal cracking. It is shown that as the composition of the heavy petroleum residue changes, so do the properties of the resultant coking additive: a higher fraction of the low-boiling components in the feedstock is associated with a higher volatile matter content; the carbon materials produced from vacuum residue have a higher microhardness; the coking product produced from the visbreaker bottoms has a lower porosity compared with the product obtained from the vacuum residue. This research was carried out as part of a governmental assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in the framework of the following research project: 0792-2020-0010 “Fundamentals of innovative processing techniques to obtain environmentally-friendly motor fuels and innovative carbon materials with variable macro- and microstructure of the mesophase from heavy hydrocarbon materials”. The research was carried out at the laboratory of the Shared Knowledge Centre of the Saint Petersburg Mining University.

Development of Gui for Ards Model Tool Using Matlab® Software

An interface for the atmospheric residue desulfurization (ARD) modeling tool developed at petroleum research center (PRC). The modeling tool simulates and predicts the concentrations of sulfur, nickel, vanadium, asphaltene, and conradum carbon residue (CCR) versus time on stream. This tool for built in MATLAB®, requires experimental data for developed for its execution and produces a large number of figures as outputs. Using the developed interface data templates are populated in a friendly manner. In addition, the produced figures are presented in an organized format. The interface is built in the graphical user interface (GUI) of MATLAB.

Study of pressure impact on atmospheric residue hdyrocracking in the presence of oil shales

The paper presents the results of hydrocracking process of atmospheric residue in the presence of oil shales as an alternative crude, studies the pressure influence on hydrocracking process as well. It is reveled that the organic and mineral parts of oil shales activate thermal conversions of petroleum products. The pressure impact on the process was studied in the interval of 1−4 MPa in the temperature of 450 оС. It was defined that with the pressure boost from 1.0 up to 2 MPa (in 450 оС) the yield of light petroleum products increases from 68 to 70 % mass, with the further pressure rise from 2 to 4 MPa the yield of light petroleum products increases up to 72 % mass, and the coke amount decreases from 3.5 to 2 %. In the result of pressure boost from 1 to 4 MPa (in 450 оС) the yield of gasoline fraction increases from 28.8 up to 29.2 % mass, and the diesel from 39.2 up to 42.2 %. The gasoline fraction obtained due to the atmospheric residue hydrocracking in the pre-sence of oil shales is stable and characterized with the insignificant amount of aromatic and unsaturated hydrocarbons in the composition. Octane number is equal to 70-80 p. After hydrotreatment the gasoline and diesel fractions may be used as fuels. The composition of obtained gas allows applying it as a fuel in the oil refineries.