Desulfurization of al-ahdab crude oil using adsorption-assisted oxidative process

Dissertant

Jabbar, Saja Muhsin

Thesis advisor

Ibrahim, Niran Khalil

University

University of Technology

Faculty

-

Department

Department of Chemical Engineering

University Country

Iraq

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2013

English Abstract

The presence of sulfur in crude oil poses enormous challenges as regards its negative environmental and economic impact.

As such, the safety of the equipment is at high risk during the processing of Al-Ahdab crude oil (3.9wt% sulfur) because of its sour nature.

The present research work therefore is aimed at reducing the sulfur content of Al-Ahdab crude oil prior to processing by subjecting it to five different treating methods namely: solvent extraction, oxidation, combined oxidation/solvent extraction, oxidation assisted by adsorption and combined oxidation/extraction assisted by adsorption using relatively mild conditions.

The desulfurization efficiency was investigated firstly using extraction desulfurization.

Different solvents have been tested including acetonitrile, acetone and methanol.

The measured sulfur content of the crude oil, obtained after 30 minutes contact time indicated that acetonitrile has the higher ability to extract sulfur compounds than acetone and methanol respectively giving desulfurization efficiency of 28.5%, using 3:1 solvent/oil ratio.

The second desulfurization mode studied was oxidation, using hydrogen peroxide as an oxidation agent.

The results indicate that the desulfurization efficiency increases with increasing reaction temperature (35-60 0C), reaction time (15-60 min) and mixing speed (100-500 rpm).

Also H2O2/Formic acid system showed higher performance as compared to H2O2/HCL with desulfurization efficiency 7.2% and 4.14% respectively.

The best operating conditions were 60 0C, 500 rpm and time and 60 minutes reaction time.

On using combined oxidation/solvent extraction with acetonitrile, the desulfurization efficiency was enhanced from 7.2% to 31.5%.

The effect of operation variables on the oxidation desulfurization of crude oil using hydrogen peroxide as an oxidizing agent and activated carbon as a catalyst was studied.

The sulfur content in crude oil was decreased from 3.9% to 2.622% at 60 0C, 500 rpm and time and 60 minutes reaction time, corresponding to a desulfurization efficiency of 32.8%.

The highest desulfurization efficiency achieved was 42.5%% on using combined oxidation/extraction assisted by adsorption treating method.

In this study an artificial neural network (ANNs) (consisting of two hidden layers and twenty neuron in each layer) was used for modeling the experimental data.

The output tracks the targets very well and the R2 - value was 0.999.

Main Subjects

Engineering & Technology Sciences (Multidisciplinary)

Topics

• Adsorption

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-418388