KINETICS OF HYDRODESULFURIZATION OF HEAVY GAS OIL DERIVED FROM OIL-SANDS BITUMEN

Abstract

ABSTRACT With gradual shortage in the supply of crude oil, the importance of producing synthetic crude oil from oil sands and shale oil is increasing day by day. In the present paper, the effects of various process variables such as temperature, liquid hourly space velocity and hydrogen/heavy gas oil volumetric ratio on the removal of sulfur compounds from oil sands derived heavy gas oil has been studied. The experiments have been carried out in a micro scale trickle bed reactor over a commercial Ni–Mo catalyst. The temperature, liquid hourly space velocity and hydrogen/heavy gas oil volumetric ratio have been varied from 365 to 415°C, 0.5 to 1.9 h−1 and 400 to 1000 ml, respectively. Under optimum reaction conditions over 96% conversion of sulfur compounds was achieved. The kinetics of the rate of sulfur removal from the oil sands derived heavy gas oil has also been discussed in this article.