Detailed investigations of the influence of catalyst packing porosity on the performance of THAI-CAPRI process for in situ catalytic upgrading of heavy oil and bitumen

Heavy oils and bitumen are indispensable resources for a turbulent-free transition to a decarbonized global energy and economic system. This is because according to the analysis of the International Energy Agency’s 2020 estimates, the world requires up to 770 billion barrels of oil from now to year 2040. However, BP’s 2020 statistical review of world energy has shown that the global total reserves of the cheap-to-produce conventional oil are roughly only 520.2 billion barrels. This implies that the huge reserves of the practically unexploited difficult-and-costly-to-upgrade-and-produce heavy oils and bitumen must be immediately developed using advanced upgrading and extraction technologies which have greener credentials. Furthermore, in accordance with climate change mitigation strategies and to efficiently develop the heavy oils and bitumen resources, producers would like to maximize their upgrading within the reservoirs by using energy-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies such as the yet-to-be-fully-understood THAI-CAPRI process. The THAI-CAPRI process uses in situ combustion and in situ catalytic reactions to produce high-quality oil from heavy oils and bitumen reservoirs. However, prolonging catalyst life and effectiveness and maximizing catalytic reactions are a major challenge in the THAI-CAPRI process. Therefore, in this work, the first ever-detailed investigations of the effects of alumina-supported cobalt oxide–molybdenum oxide (CoMo/γ-Al2O3) catalyst packing porosity on the performance of the THAI-CAPRI process are performed through numerical simulations using CMG STARS. The key findings in this study include: the larger the catalyst packing porosity, the higher the accessible surface area for the mobilized oil to reach the inner coke-uncoated catalysts and thus the higher the API gravity and quality of the produced oil, which clearly indicated that sulphur and nitrogen heteroatoms were catalytically removed and replaced with hydrogen. Over the 290 min of combustion period, slightly more oil (i.e. an additional 0.43% oil originally in place (OOIP)) is recovered in the model which has the higher catalyst packing porosity. In other words, there is a cumulative oil production of 2330 cm3 when the catalyst packing porosity is 56% versus a cumulative oil production of 2300 cm3 in the model whose catalyst packing porosity is 45%. The larger the catalyst packing porosity, the lower the mass and thus cost of the catalyst required per m3 of annular space around the horizontal producer well. The peak temperature and the very small amount of produced oxygen are only marginally affected by the catalyst packing porosity, thereby implying that the extents of the combustion and thermal cracking reactions are respectively the same in both models. Thus, the higher upgrading achieved in the model whose catalyst packing porosity is 56% is purely due to the fact that the extent of the catalytic reactions in the model is larger than those in the model whose catalyst packing porosity is 45%.

High-entropy intermetallics serve an ultrastable single-atom Pt for propane dehydrogenation

Propane dehydrogenation (PDH) has been a promising propylene production process that can compensate for the increasing global demand for propylene. However, Pt-based catalysts with high stability at ≥600°C have barely been reported because the catalysts typically result in short catalyst life owing to side reactions and coke formation. Herein, we report a new class of heterogeneous catalysts using high-entropy intermetallics (HEIs). Pt–Pt ensembles, which cause side reactions, are entirely diluted by the component inert metals in PtGe-type HEI; thereby, unfavorable side reactions are drastically inhibited. The resultant HEI: (PtCoCu)(GeGeSn)/Ca–SiO2 exhibited an outstandingly high catalytic stability, even at 600°C (kd−1 = τ = 4146 h = 173 d), and almost no deactivation of the catalyst was observed two months for the first time.

Status and development for detection and control of ammonium bisulfate as a by-product of SCR denitrification

When denitrification technology using NH3 or urea as the reducing agent is applied to remove NOx from the flue gas, ammonium bisulfate (ABS) by-product will also be generated in the flue gas. ABS has an impact on catalyst life span, denitrification efficiency etc., air preheater and its downstream thermal equipment also have a significant negative impact due to its plugging and corrosion. The requirement for NOx removal efficiency is improved by ultra-low emissions in China. However, wide-load denitrification makes the flue gas composition and temperature changing more complicated. Increasing ammonia injection can improve the NOx removal effect, but too much ammonia injection will lead to the formation of ABS and the increase of deposition risk, the contradiction between these two aspects is amplified by ultra-low emissions and wide-load denitrification in many plants. Coordinating NOx control and reducing the impact of ABS on equipment are issues that the industry needs to solve urgently. In recent years, extensive research on ABS had been carried out deeply, consequently, there has been a relatively in-deepth knowledge foundation for ABS formation, formation temperature, deposition temperature, dew point temperature, decomposition behavior, etc., but the existing researches are insufficient to support the problem of ABS under full load denitrification completely resolved. Therefore, some analysis and detection methods related to ABS are reviewed in this paper, and the impact of ABS on SCR, air preheater and other equipment and the existing research results on reducing the impact of ABS are summarized also. It is hoped that this review will provide a reference for the industry to solve the problems of ABS that hinder wide-load denitrification and affect ultra-low emissions.

Kinetic Reactions Modeling and Optimization of Claus Process

There are many pollution and environment problem in the human ecosystem. There are different methods are used to removal of sulfur from sour gases for example Basic Claus process and Modified Claus process . There are different chemical software are used for simulation and optimization of Claus process for example Aspen Plus and Chemcad ECT. The Gibbs free energy method is introduced and model of Claus process. There are new parameter are introduced in reaction furnace to reduce the error from 33% to 7 %. The waste heat boiler is installed at the reaction furnace in which high pressure stream is produced and study the decomposition the hydrogen sulphide. The new rate of reaction is introduced of the enhancement of H2 production in chemical process. The simulation of reaction furnace in Aspen plus software is the maximum utilization of process. Due to suitable operating condition of reaction furnace is caused the maximum destruction of ammonia gas in the reactor. When we are increasing the oxygen concentration and temperature of feed is causing decreasing the ammonia production in reaction furnace. It is below than acceptance value of ammonia is 150 ppm in the reaction furnace. The presence of oxygen components, Sulfur oxide, hydroxide components are effect on decreasing the amount of ammonia in furnace and temperature is about at 1350⁰C. It is noted that when the production of sulfur recovery is decrease in Claus process and the production of carbon monoxide is increase in the thermal section at the existence. Now we are work on parametric studies of furnace that could be causes the production of ammonia destruction and CO emission in the Claus process. Due to optimize the reaction furnace parameter are help to get large of sulfur production, ammonia gas destruction, increased the catalyst life and decreased of dangerous gases.

Low Temperature Dehydration of Glycerol to Acrolein in Vapor Phase with Hydrogen as Dilution: From Catalyst Screening via TPSR to Real-Time Reaction in a Fixed-Bed

Temperature programmed surface reaction (TPSR) was developed as a method for rapid screening of catalysts. In this study, a series of acid catalysts was screened for the low-temperature dehydration of glycerol to acrolein via TPSR. Results suggested that most catalysts show activity of glycerol conversion to acrolein at a greatly different temperature range. HY, SiO2 supported H4SiW12O40 (STA/SiO2), SO42−/ZrO2, and SO42−/TiO2 were observed to be efficient for the conversion of glycerol into acrolein at 210 °C, which was significantly lower than that generally reported (250–340 °C). Moreover, high selectivity of acrolein was gained at 85% and 86% over SiW/SiO2 and SO42−/TiO2, respectively. A new style catalyst, ZnCl2/SiO2, was also found to be highly selective to acrolein and evaluated in a conventional fixed-bed reactor. Especially, stability tests showed that the catalyst life was up to 300 h with no clear deactivation on ZnCl2/SiO2 with hydrogen as dilution.

Effects of Additives and Metals on Crystallization of Nano-Sized HZSM-5 Zeolite for Glycerol Aromatization

Nano-sized HZSM-5 (n-HZSM-5) was synthesized and applied in the aromatization of glycerol. The effects of additives (carboxymethylcellulose sodium, NaCl, sodium alginate, etc.) on the chemical and physic properties of n-HZSM-5 during preparation were investigated. Metal modification was also investigated based on the synthesized n-HZSM-5. The results showed that the addition of carboxymethylcellulose sodium (CMC-Na), NaCl and sodium alginate (SA) led to forming smaller sizes of HZSM-5 and promoted the acid amounts of the catalysts, which increased its catalytic activities for obtaining BTX. The highest BTX yield of ~35% was obtained by SA derived n-HZSM-5, and the life of the catalyst were both obviously promoted by the additives with a highest of ~11 h by γ-(2,3-epoxypropoxy)propytrimethoxysilane (KH-560) derived n-HZSM-5. BTX yields could be improved by 40%by the addition of Zn and Cd in n-HZSM-5 while having little effect on the catalyst life.

Catalyst Deactivation, Poisoning and Regeneration

Catalyst life-time represents one of the most crucial economic aspects in most industrial catalytic processes, due to costly shut-downs, catalyst replacements and proper disposal of spentmaterials[...]