Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of Russian ...

PP-III-10SIMULTANEOUS HYDROGENATION OF SULFUR, NITROGEN ANDAROMATIC COMPOUNDS IN HEAVY PETROLEUM FRACTIONSOVER NiMo/γ-Al 2 O 3 CATALYSTSF. Jiménez 1 , V. Kafarov 1 , M. Nuñez 2 , R. Maciel Filho 31 Industrial University of Santander, Kra 27 Calle 9, Tel.: +57 +76344746,Fax: +57 +76344684, Bucaramanga, Colombia. E-mail: kafarov@uis.edu.co2 Colombian Petroleum Institute - ICP, Piedecuesta, Colombia3 Campinas State University, Campinas, S.P, BrazilHydrotreating processes (HDT) have long been broadly investigated for upgrading ofpetroleum fractions all over world, and its role grew in importance recently because of the useof heavier feedstocks as a consequence of decreasing in light reserves and international pricesincreasing. Particularly, hydrodesulfurization (HDS) and more recently hydrodenitrogenation(HDN) and hydrodearomatization (HDA) are becoming a key target for the research inspecialized scientific community [1, 2]. The three processes have been separately matter ofmany investigations, and therefore many phenomena seem clear for the scientists [3].However, no extensive work has been done in research of simultaneous HDS, HDN and HDAcarried out in heavy feeds at industrial process condition. To respond to this situation, thiswork deals with the analysis of the simultaneous behavior of sulfur, basic nitrogen, non-basicnitrogen and aromatic families compounds, in real heavy feeds oils during the hydrotreatingprocess [4]. In this research, heavy vacuum gas oil (VGO) and demetalized oil (DMO) wereselected as main feedstocks. By fractioned distillation, each one of the feeds were split in fourfractions (lowest to heaviest) and each fraction was analyzed and underwent to the HDTprocess in a pilot plant, employing a combination of catalysts NiMo/γ-Al 2 O 3 and undertemperatures of 330, 350 and 370 °C, pressure of 10 MPa, liquid hourly space velocity of1.1 h –1 , and gas/oil ratio of 6.24 [5]. The employed methodology is shown in Figure 1. Thehydrotreating of full VGO and DMO was denominated «Direct Pathway», whereas thehydrotreating by cuts was denominated «Indirect Pathway». The analytical techniques used inthis work were: ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy for analysis of aromatics families, nuclearmagnetic resonance (H-NMR) for total aromatic hydrogen content, and standard methods(ASTM) for the determination of total sulfur, total nitrogen, basic nitrogen, boiling pointdistribution, density, API, refraction index, and distribution in saturates, aromatics, resins.321