Catalytic adsorptive of nickel metal from Iraqi crude oil using non-conventional catalysts

Abstract

The existence of heavy metals together with the essential hydrocarbon components of crude oil causes a significant issue that leads to harmful effects on many petroleum processes industries in addition to reducing the value of oil product produced from refineries. The current research aims to study the possibility of removing the nickel element from Iraqi crude oil by a simple pre-treatment method based on adsorption technology. Treating of crude oil was performed using two types of adsorbents, the first one that had a high surface area, namely commercial granular activated carbon (GAC) and the other was non-valuable material, i.e., white egg shells (WES). The adsorption process was conducted in a batch mode unit and at different operating parameters of the adsorbent media amount, (water/crude oil) ratio, the contact time and the agitation speed in order to optimize the conditions for the best removal of the nickel substance from crude oil. The results indicated that the GAC had a high adsorption capacity reached to 87%, while the WES had a modest efficiency of about 45% removed of total nickel content. The results also showed that the efficiency of the treatment was increased with increase in the amount of adsorbent material, the (water/crude oil) ratio, the contact time and the agitation speed to a certain limit and then fixing or decreasing according to the type of variable. The present paper provides a simple pre-treatment method for removing one of the harmful heavy metals from crude oil in an easy and eco-friendly layout accessing to zero residue level concept.