Kinetics of Bitumen‐Derived Gas Oil Upgrading Using a Commercial NiMo/Al₂O₃ Catalyst

Abstract

Hydrotreating (HT) kinetics of Athabasca bitumen‐derived gas oil has been studied between 340 to 420°C using a commercial NiMo/γ‐Al2O3 catalyst. The kinetics analyses included overall conversion of high‐boiling species into low‐boiling products, hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) of total, basic and non‐basic nitrogen compounds and hydrodesulfurization (HDS). Three temperature regimes were marked out for the kinetic analyses: low (340‐370°C), intermediate (370‐400°C) and high (400‐420°C). The mechanism for the conversion of high to low‐boiling species was observed to change from one temperature regime to the other, giving rise to different activation energies. HDS and HDN activation energies increased in the order: high < low < intermediate severity temperature regime.

Kinetic model for hydrocracking of heavy oil in a CSTR involving short term catalyst deactivation

“…Different kinetic approaches have been reported in the literature for the hydrocracking of oil fractions (lumping approach, continuous kinetics lumping, single event model) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], but only a few deal with the hydrocracking of heavy oil. Because vacuum gas oil has been mostly used as feed, catalyst deactivation has been neglected.…”

A two-dimensional discrete lumped model for a trickle-bed vacuum gas oil hydrocracking reactor

“…Therefore, the values reported in this work are reasonable. Additionally, the reported activation energy for the formation of naphtha from middle distillate at low temperatures (340 o C to 370 o C) is approximately 8.8 kcal/ mol [32]. Therefore, the activation energy estimated in this research (i.e., 5.4 kcal/mol) is acceptable.…”

Hydrotreating of Heavy Gas Oil Derived from Athabasca Bitumen Over Co–Mo/γ-Al2O3 Catalyst Prepared by Sonochemical Method

“…When the catalyst was stabilized, the HDN and HDS activities of both the catalysts were studied for 3 days at 370, 380, 390 and 400°C. Based on our previous studies [24,25], rate constants k HDN and k HDS were calculated from the conversion data under the assumption that HDN follows first-order kinetics and that HDS follows 1.5th kinetics. Then the following rate equations can be used for calculating apparent rate constants…”