Abstract
The saturates and aromatic constituents of the resulting light crude oil during catalytic and thermal upgrading of Omani heavy crude oil were further characterized to elucidate the crucial role of Ni–Co/γ-Al2O3 catalyst and gas media. GC-MS analysis confirms that water-gas shift reaction (WGSR) promotes a type of hydrogenation reaction resulting in higher saturates contents of the upgraded oil in nitrogen media. In a bid to buttress the relevance of the catalyst, C7–C30 homologous series results show that the quantities of marketable components in the crude oil were higher with catalytic upgrading than thermal cracking.
Acknowledgments
Avbenake Onoriode Paul would like to acknowledge the assistance of Umar Omar in calibrating the GC-FID for analysis, and Abdulahi Yusuf in obtaining the heavy crude oil sample from Petroleum Department Oman (PDO).
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article.