Upgrading of heavy crude oil using NiCo/Al ₂ O ₃ catalysts

NiCo/γ-Al ₂ O ₃ catalyst was prepared and used to upgrade heavy crude oil in a batch reactor at 380°C and 32 bar Hydrogen or Nitrogen gas for 2 hours. The effect of water-gas shift reaction on the upgrading process was studied by utilizing the water-in-oil for non-dehydrated crude with 20.77 wt% water content. To study this, two distinct experiments were performed; the first was in Hydrogen media with catalysts and water-gas shift reaction was excluded from partaking using an inner liner in the reactor. Subsequently, a second reaction in Nitrogen environment and catalysts with water-gas shift reaction was performed to measure the effect of this type of aquathermolysis reaction. The results show that the latter experienced 96.71% viscosity reduction as against 90.68% with the former. GC-MS and FT-IR analysis confirms that water-gas shift reaction promotes a type of hydrogenation reaction resulting in higher saturates contents of the upgraded oil as compared to using pure hydrogen gas. In a bid to buttress the importance of catalysts, thermal cracking was performed in both Hydrogen and Nitrogen media and GC-FID results show that the quantities of marketable components in the crude oil were higher with catalytic upgrading than thermal cracking. XRD was subsequently used to ascertain the crystalline structure of the catalysts.