Figure 1: Chiral alkanes prepared with a pulsed dielectric-discharge plasma. Credit: IEE
The increasingly poor quality of heavy oil resources has brought more difficult challenges to traditional heavy oil processing technology. The high temperatures, pressure conditions, carbon emissions, and energy consumption required to convert heavy oil into value-added chemicals are far from ideal.
Plasma technology is a potential approach to address this problem without catalysts and high temperature and high pressure conditions during the reaction. It also has the advantages of short process flow, low carbon emissions and large-scale material adaptability. However, this technology is complicated by the inert nature of the heavy oil.
Researchers led by Professor Shao Tao of the Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and their collaborators explored the conversion laws and reaction mechanisms for plasma-enabled heavy oil conversion using various types of pulsed discharge plasma, converting heavy oil into acetylene, carbon materials or alkanes. annular.
Their research results have been published in Journal of Chemical Engineering With the titles “Catalyst-free hydrogenation of toluene to methylcyclohexane by pulsed DBD plasma under ambient conditions” and “One-step conversion of high value heavy oil into H2c2h2 and carbon nanomaterials by non-thermal plasma”.
Using microsecond pulsed-discharge plasmas, the researchers investigated the cracking properties of heavy oil in terms of pulse voltage, pulse repetition frequency, and discharge force. Emission spectroscopy revealed the rapid heating and cooling mechanism of the pulsed spark plasma.
They achieved one-step cracking of heavy oil into acetylene, hydrogen and nanocarbon materials, with a heavy oil conversion rate of 50.4%, acetylene yield of 19.7%, and an energy consumption of 55.4 kW/m.3.
Figure 2: Application scenario of heavy oil treatment using plasma. Credit: IEE
Moreover, using pulsed dielectric discharge plasma, the researchers realized the hydrogenation of uncatalyzed aromatics into cycloalkanes under mild conditions, breaking the limitations of catalysts and harsh conditions in traditional heavy oil processing.
Isotope conversion experiment and density functional theory calculation revealed the mechanism and kinetic process of hydrogen radical hydrogenation, which laid the foundation for the study of the plasma mass oil hydrogenation process.
more information:
Hao Sun et al, Catalyst-free hydrogenation of toluene to methylcyclohexane by pulsed DBD plasma under ambient conditions, Journal of Chemical Engineering (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2023.142823
Zhe Fan et al., One-step high-value conversion of heavy oil into H2, C2H2 and carbon nanomaterials by non-thermal plasma, Journal of Chemical Engineering (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2023.141860
the quote: Pulsed Discharge Plasma Helps Convert Heavy Oil (2023, May 24) Retrieved May 24, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-05-pulsed-discharge-plasma-heavy-oil.html
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