Heavy oil upgrading in supercritical water using iron based catalyst

The activity of an iron based multi-component catalyst on oxidative cracking of extra heavy oil was studied. Bitumen was used as heavy oil feed stocks in determining the product yields and stability of the iron based multi-component catalysts. The extra heavy oil slightly decreased with increasing feed concentration up to 30 wt % bitumen, above this concentration range, no noticeable change was observed. The coke formation also increased with the bitumen concentration in the feed. The high concentration of bitumen in the feed at low partial pressure of water resulted in phase transformation of the catalyst to magnetite, leading to a catalyst deactivation. As bitumen concentration increased, benzene (used as solvent) concentration in the feed stock decreased. Thus, the accessibility of water to the catalysts decreased with decreasing benzene concentration (increasing the bitumen concentration). This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 20th Annual Saudi-Japan Symposium on Catalysts in Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals (Dharan, Saudi Arabia 12/5-6/2010).