Quality Prediction from Hydroprocessing through Infrared Spectroscopy (IR)

A fast, reliable, and inexpensive way to monitor the quality of hydroprocessed products from a heavy bitumen distillate is presented in this work. Predictive models for density, nitrogen and sulfur contents, and weight percentage of lumped products, in this case, the distillation cuts IBP–235, 235–280, 280–343, and 343+ °C, were obtained through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and partial least squares regression (PLS-R). In addition, two structural parameters also derived from FTIR spectroscopy are proposed for chemical understanding of the former process. Two sets of hydroprocessing experimental runs were conducted under various operating conditions to evaluate the nature of the hydrocarbon (HC) products from two different catalysts. The statistic validation of the models demonstrated the capability to predict accurately physicochemical properties of a wide range distillation cut. Simplicity and accuracy make FTIR-PLS a promising tool for online estimation of process conversion as well as...