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Oil and Gas Security
Published in Maria G. Burns, Managing Energy Security, 2019
Found at depths below 75 meters, tar sands are harvested as a solid and not as a liquid. It is typically made up of substantially high particles of asphaltenes; the asphaltenes are chemically modified particles of organic chemical substances, i.e., bitumen with asphalt-like properties. These are found in crude oil together with resins, aromatic hydrocarbons, and saturated hydrocarbons. Their presence in petroleum can significantly impede the production procedure. Consequently, specific asphaltene components will mean the heavy oil has to go through an additional refining procedure known as de-asphalting. The chemical structure of asphaltenes may comprise of portions of sulfur, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, as well as the heavy metals vanadium and nickel, which are broadly known as dissolvable. Regardless of the high cost and advanced technologies required, energy companies consider this commodity particularly appealing.
Membrane Processing
Published in John J. McKetta, Unit Operations Handbook, 2018
There are a very large number of other uses to which membranes are put. So far, membranes have not been used for the separation of hydrocarbons for the simple reason that, normally, the material is unstable in the presence of hydrocarbons. Signal Companies (LaJolla, California) however, is expecting a breakthrough in this field. A polymeric membrane has been found to be suitable for the recovery of solvent after the de-asphalting of heavy oil. A spiral wound polysulfone membrane recovered 80% of the pentane solvent from the oil. The heavy molecular weight hydrocarbons in the oil form a gel layer on the surface of the membrane, and this acts as a barrier to all but the solvent, which diffuses through the gel.
Adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system to predict average asphaltene particle diameter case study: in thermal de-asphalting process
Published in Petroleum Science and Technology, 2020
Maryam Sadi, Somayeh Kananpanah, Mahmoud Bayat
Three Iranian crude oil samples of type I, II and III collected from south oil field of Iran supplied by the Research Institute of Petroleum Industry of Iran with different APIs and asphaltene contents are chosen for this study. The main specifications are tabulated in Table 1. The experiments are run in a pilot custom made set-up designed and assembled in Research Institute of Petroleum Industry for thermal de-asphalting. Thermal de-asphalting procedure, where the asphaltene particles are aggregated through heating the crude oil at an elevated temperature is applied for separating asphaltene from crude oil. Details of experimental set-up, sample preparation, and DLS experiments were presented in our previously published papers (Kananpanah et al. 2016, 2017a, Kananpanah, Bayat, and Mousavian 2017b).
Effects of crude oil on the performances of hard asphalt and its mixtures
Published in International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 2022
Guilian Zou, Rong Zhuo, Xuekai Sun, Jun Luo
The asphalt mixture performance is affected by asphalt, but what affects the asphalt performance? It is well known to be mainly affected by two factors, namely the crude oil source and the production process (Morozov et al. 2004, Yeon et al. 2008, Kwon et al. 2014, Shin et al. 2017). Selecting a suitable crude oil is the key to producing high-quality road asphalt (Roman and Garcia-Morales 2017). Naphthene-based crude oil, intermediate crude oil with a low wax content, and thickened oil are the main raw materials for road asphalt production. At present, approximately 30 million tons of asphalt is consumed in China's road engineering every year; however, the sources of crude oil suitable for road asphalt production are very limited. Therefore, many refineries need to import crude oil from other countries. Selecting the kind of crude oil suitable for road asphalt production from imported crude oils is the basis of ensuring the road asphalt quality. In this study, three types of crude oil from South America, which are codenamed BSK, MB, and MR, were selected. Asphalt production processes can be categorised into distillation, oxidation, blending, and solvent de-asphalting. The distillation process is one of the simplest and most cost-effective methods in road asphalt production, leading to approximately 70% to 80% of the total asphalt production. With the three types of crude oil selected herein, three Pen40/60 asphalts were produced through the distillation process, while three Pen20/40 asphalts were produced through the distillation/oxidation process (distillation process combined with oxidation process). That is, the processes used to produce asphalt with the same-penetration grade were the same; hence, the asphalt penetration values at 25°C were about the same. The influence of crude oil on the properties of hard asphalt and its mixture were studied using the selected crude oil and processes to improve the performance and quality of hard asphalt and asphalt pavements.