Guillermo Centeno

Effects of Catalyst Properties on Asphaltenes Composition During Hydrotreating of Heavy Oils

Abstract Three NiMo commercial catalysts were used for carrying out hydrotreating (HDT) experiments in a high-pressure pilot plant. Maya crude oil was employed as HDT feed. All hydrotreated products and their corresponding precipitated asphaltenes fractions were characterized by elemental analysis and metals contents. Extraction of asphaltenes was carried out according to the method described in ASTM D-3279. It was observed from our characterization results that while nitrogen and metals content in asphaltenes increase sulfur decrease as the reaction temperature is increased. This different behavior was attributed to the localization of each heteroatom in the asphaltene molecule. Pore size of catalysts showed the major influence on hydrotreated product asphaltenes composition.

Calculating the Viscosity of Crude Oil Blends by Binary Interaction Parameters Using Literature Data

Even though several blending rules have been developed to estimate viscosity of crude oil blends, most of them present significant deviations from real viscosity values. However, blending rules based on interaction parameters have shown to offer better predictions. In this work, experimental data reported in literature were used to calculate binary interaction parameters, while validation of the blending rule was performed with a different set of data to that employed for deriving such parameters. Comparison of experimental viscosity data and those calculated with the blending rule showed excellent prediction capability with minimal error. The values of the interaction parameters exhibited a clear relationship with temperature, thus they can be used to estimate viscosity of crude oil blends at different temperature.