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The selective removal of nitrogen-containing compounds from oil and oil fractions is of interest because of the potential deleterious impact of such compounds on products and processes. Problems caused by nitrogen-containing compounds include gum formation, acid catalyst inhibition and deactivation, acid−base pair-related corrosion, and metal complexation. A brief overview of the classes of nitrogen compounds found in oil is provided. The review of processes to remove nitrogen from oil emphasizes studies that investigated denitrogenation of industrial feedstocks, such as refinery fractions, heavy oils, and bitumens. The main topics covered are hydrotreating, liquid−liquid phase partitioning, solvent deasphalting, adsorption, chemical conversion followed by separation, and microbial conversion. Chemical conversion processes include oxidative denitrogenation, N-alkylation, complexation with metal salts, and conversion in high-temperature water. There are many processes for denitrogenation by separation of the nitrogen-rich products from oil without removing the nitrogen group from the nitrogencontaining compounds. As a consequence, most of these processes are viable mainly for removal of nitrogen from low-nitrogencontent oils, typically with <0.1 wt % N. At present, hydrodenitrogenation appears to be the only industrially viable process for nitrogen removal from oils with high nitrogen content.

Strategies for heavy oil desulfurization were evaluated by reviewing desulfurization literature and critically assessing the viability of the various methods for heavy oil. The desulfurization methods including variations thereon that are discussed include hydrodesulfurization, extractive desulfurization, oxidative desulfurization, biodesulfurization and desulfurization through alkylation, chlorinolysis, and by using supercritical water. Few of these methods are viable and/or efficient for the desulfurization of heavy oil. This is mainly due to the properties of the heavy oil, such as high sulfur content, high viscosity, high boiling point, and refractory nature of the sulfur compounds. The approach with the best chance of leading to a breakthrough in desulfurization of heavy oil is autoxidation followed by thermal decomposition of the oxidized heavy oil. There is also scope for synergistically employing autoxidation in combination with biodesulfurization and hydrodesulfurization.

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