Hydro-treating of asphaltenes in supercritical toluene with mgo-supported Fe, Ni, NiMo, and CoMo catalysts

Chunbao Charles Xu, Huasu Su, Mainak Ghosh

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

For the first time, the AVTB-derived asphaltenes(containing very high concentrations of sulfur(7.70 wt % S) and nitrogen(1.08 wt % N) were hydrotreated over novel MgO-supported Fe, Ni, NiMo, and CoMocatalysts in supercritical toluene at 380 °C under hydrogen of 5 MPa(cold pressure) in a batch reactor. The supercritical toluene alone without any catalyst was found to be effective for conversion of the highly aromatic asphaltenes(AS) to less aromatic maltenes(MA) through a thermal cracking mechanism. All the MgO-supported catalysts proved to be effective for hydro-conversion of AS to MA in supercriticaltoluene. The activities of these catalysts for AS conversion showedthe order of sequence of Fe/MgO < Ni/MgO < CoMo/MgO < NiMo/MgO. Amongall the MgO-supported catalysts tested, NiMo/MgO was found to be the most active one for promoting the removal of sulfur and AS. The sulfur/nitrogen/AS removal efficiencies for the NiMo/MgO catalyst increased with the treatment time, and the efficiencies at 120 min of treatment attained as high as 43%, 30%, and 70%, respectively. The MgO-supported catalysts showed excellent performance for preventing and retarding the formation of highly condensed aromatics or coke in the hydro-treatment of AS in supercritical toluene. With the presence of NiMo/MgO catalyst, hydro-treating AS in the supercritical toluene for a reaction time up to 120 min produced a strikingly low yield(< 0.7%) of toluene-insoluble product. © 2009 American Chemical Society.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3645-3651
JournalEnergy and Fuels
Volume23
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Jul 2009
Externally publishedYes

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