Effect of Vanadium on the Petroleum Coke Ash Fusibility

Abstract

Ash fusibility is closely related to ash slagging, which has significant impact on the clean and efficient utilization of petroleum coke (petcoke). Some mineral elements in petcoke, especially vanadium (V), are considered to be responsible for ash-related slagging during thermal conversion of petcoke. This study investigates the effect of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) on synthetic petcoke ash fusibility from different perspectives, including V2O5 content variation, temperature rising, and atmosphere change. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) were used to determine the mineral transformation and surface morphology of ash and slag at a high temperature. The ash-melting process was simulated by thermodynamic equilibrium calculations via a multicomponent system. The results show that ash fusion temperatures (AFTs) of synthetic ash samples vary markedly with the V2O5 content increasing. Moreover, AFTs exhibit a significant difference between reducing and oxidizing atmospheres, which c...