SOLVENT DEASPHALTING OF VACUUM RESIDUE IN A BENCH-SCALE UNIT

The introduction of solvent deasphalting (SDA), on different refining schemes, bring to the refineries a very promising solution for desulfurization problems and/or catalytic cracking processes in recent years. In this work, some effective parameters of SDA process such as temperature and solvent and residues nature have been studied on the different residues of an Iranian crude oil mixture (oAPI 19.5) in a bench unit. All produced deasphalted oils (DAOs) were almost free of asphaltene (<0.5 wt%) apart from the feed nature. SDA by means of pentane as solvent reduced the heavy metal content of the feeds up to 85%, sulfur content up to 20% and CCR (Carbon Conradson Residue) content up to 50%, where SDA with butane results in 93% reduction of heavy metals content, 20% reduction of sulfur content and 66% reduction of CCR.