Effects of SARA fractions on pyrolysis behavior and kinetics of heavy crude oil

Abstract

This research aims to explore the effects of saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes (SARA) fractions on the heavy crude oil pyrolysis behavior. The results showed that resins and asphaltenes had more pyrolysis residues (22.04% and 45.66%) relative to other samples. However, no residue was found after pyrolysis reactions when the oil mixed with SARA fractions. In addition, high temperature pyrolysis (HTP) activation energies of oil + saturate/resins/asphaltenes (112.50/128.36/119.45 kJ/mol) were less than that of the heavy oil (146.20 kJ/mol). The addition of saturates, resins, and asphaltenes could reduce the difficulty of the heavy oil HTP reactions.

Keywords:

• Activation energies
• heavy crude oil
• high temperature pyrolysis
• pyrolysis behavior
• SARA fractions

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Research Institute of Technology, Petrochina Xinjiang Oilfield Company for the heavy crude oil supply and financial support for this research. The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.