Cracking of Heavy Oil in Supercritical Water in the Presence of Iron Oxide Nanopowder: Asphaltene Transformations and Process Kinetics.

The products of catalytic cracking of heavy crude oil from the Ashalchinskoye oil field (the Almetyevsk district of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia) were characterized. The effects of a Fe₂O₃ nanopowder catalyst and the presence of supercritical water (SCW) on the composition and structure of these cracking products were investigated. Cracking over 0.01 wt % Fe₂O₃ nanopowder in a SCW environment was found to enhance the yield of distillates by more than 34 wt % and to reduce the content of resinous asphaltene materials by a factor of 2.1 compared to the initial crude oil. It was further shown that Fe₂O₃-nanopowder-catalyzed cracking produces coke-like asphaltenes with a low H/C atomic ratio (no higher than 0.75). Reaction rate constants were evaluated for the thermal and catalytic cracking of the heavy oil from the Ashalchinskoye field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]