Molecular Modelling of Diesel Hydrotreating Processes
Several studies regarding molecular modelling of refining processes have been carried out during last decades, which demonstrate the importance of molecular management in the optimisation of petroleum operations. One of the most studied processes has been hydrotreating, not only because of the techn...
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| Formato: | Tesis de Maestría |
| Lenguaje: | eng |
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Manchester / Universidad de Manchester
2017
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| Acceso en línea: | http://repositorio.educacionsuperior.gob.ec/handle/28000/4290 |
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| Sumario: | Several studies regarding molecular modelling of refining processes have been carried out during last decades, which demonstrate the importance of molecular management in the optimisation of petroleum operations. One of the most studied processes has been hydrotreating, not only because of the technical, safety and operating importance of removing olefins, heavy metals, sulphur, nitrogen and oxygen compounds from petroleum fractions but also due to the stricter environmental control that demands the removal of
harmful compounds, such as aromatics. Hence, it is essential to have a better understanding of the chemistry involved in hydrodesulphurisation and to include it as part of the process modelling to get a better perspective of the overall process.
One of the main issues of building reliable molecular models of petroleum refining processes has been the difficulty of validating these models with appropriate information regarding the true composition of the different components of crude oil. Therefore, the improvement and development of analytical methods for hydrocarbon research during last years is regarded as a valuable breakthrough, for making possible a deeper analysis of the composition of complex mixtures and for enabling a greater availability of this essential information.
With this background, it was proposed the molecular modelling and optimisation of diesel hydrotreating processes, based on the available information of the reactor model, the actual composition of different reactor feeds and products, their distillation curves and densities.
Moreover, for the representation of the molecular composition of the feedstocks and products, Molecular Type and Homologous Series (MTHS) matrices were built and utilised through the entire modelling process. Furthermore, the molecular composition of the different components (organised by carbon number) of each homologous series were considered to follow statistical distributions, which were fitted by probability density
functions (PDFs). Finally, by the employment of the proposed models, it was achieved a precise estimation of other bulk properties of feedstocks and products of the diesel hydrotreating processes, such as molecular weight, cetane number, kinematic viscosity, flash point, aniline point, cloud point and pour point.
In a nutshell, the building of reliable and integrated models of the entire hydrotreating process, containing a strong chemical background, is expected to allow a better selection and application of optimisation strategies to improve the economic, operating and environmental performance of refineries. Additionally, the developed methodology could be extended for being applied in the modelling and optimising of other refining processes. |
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