Experimental Study Of Upgrading Heavy Oil Using DBD Plasma

With the development of the world economy, oil consumption is increasing. Light crude oil gradually could not meet the need, a large number of heavy oil are for exploitation. Compared with light oil, heavy oil is more viscous, and denser. There are more impurities and more heavy constituents in heavy oil,these make the heavy oil processing difficulty. In order to overcome these constraints, new technologies need to be developed; DBD (Dielectric Barrier Discharges) plasma is one of them.In this paper, air and argon DBD plasma were used to upgrade diesel and heavy oil. The diesel treated by air DBD plasma became darker, red-brown gelatinous substance appeared on the quartz plate, a lot of gas was produced; Infrared spectroscopy and elemental analysis results show that the diesel content changed after the treatment. The viscosity of diesel changed a little and there were more sulfide,nitride and other impurities in the gelatinous substance; DBD plasma has little effect on diesel's surface tension; it was sure that oxidation occurred during the processing. When argon was used, creaking reaction occurred, H2, CH4 and other hydrocarbon gases were produced. The gas production decreased while the argon flow rate increasing. When air DBD plasma was used to upgrade heavy oil, the viscosity increased, brown material appeared on the quartz plate, and a lot of gas was produced. Infrared spectroscopy showed that polycyclic substances were increasing after the processing, and there were more oxygen-containing substances in the heavy oil. Element analysis results showed that elemental composition changed. After the SARA analysis, we found that colloid and asphaltene increased while saturates and aromatics decreasing; If the distance between the two plates was big enough, the oil would be converted to gases totally. When argon was used, creaking was the main reaction, a lot of useful gases were produced, in which H2 and CH4 accounted for 70%. Experimental results confirmed that, DBD plasma could crack diesel and heavy oil, a lot of high valuable gases were produced, such as H2 and C1～C5 hydrocarbon gases. It's a new way to upgrade heavy oil.