Experimental study of non-oxidized and oxidized bitumen obtained from heavy oil

Richard Djimasbe,Abdolreza Farhadian,Mikhail A Varfolomeev,Ameen A Al-Muntaser,Eduard A Galiullin,Revo Z Fakhrutdinov

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-87398-2

Abstract

Heavy oil and vacuum residue were used to obtain road bitumen BND 50/70 using two different methods of steam distillation at 323–362 °C and by oxidation, a method using packed column at temperature of 211–220 °C. The obtained residues using two methods steam distillation and oxidation are known as non-oxidized bitumen and oxidized bitumen, respectively. The products were evaluated using different standards including GOST 33133-2014, GOST 22245-90, and ASTM D5. The results showed that the yield of oxidized bitumen reached a maximal rate of 89.59% wt., while that of non-oxidized bitumen is 55% wt. The softening point of oxidized bitumen is 49–57 °C compared to non-oxidized bitumen (46–49 °C). Remarkably, the previous softening point and penetrability of 47–71 points of oxidized bitumen are consistent with norms to BND 50/70 bitumen, according standard. The non-oxidized bitumen has a relatively low softening point and a higher penetration value of 71–275, which refers to BND 200/300 bitumen. Comparatively, the use of a packed column is beneficial than the steam distillation, due to high capability of the nozzles to strengthens contact between feedstock and compressed air in the reaction zone and decreases the reaction time to 4.15 h.

Highlights

Heavy oil and vacuum residue were used to obtain road bitumen BND 50/70 using two different methods of steam distillation at 323–362 °C and by oxidation, a method using packed column at temperature of 211–220 °C
The results reveal that the increase of temperature of the bottom (302–340 °C ± 2 °C) and top (150–201 °C ± 1 °C) of the column decreases the yield of bitumen from 55% ± 0.3 to 47% ± 0.2 respectively
The temperature remains a key factor for the process of steam distillation of heavy oil for the production of the non-oxidized bitumen

Summary

Introduction

Heavy oil and vacuum residue were used to obtain road bitumen BND 50/70 using two different methods of steam distillation at 323–362 °C and by oxidation, a method using packed column at temperature of 211–220 °C. Unconventional hydrocarbons sources such as heavy oil, natural bitumen, shale oil were discovered in many countries as Canada, Venezuela, Brasilia, Russia, Chad, and Madagascar[5,6,7,8,9,10] The discovery of these resources will promote the growth of production in order to balance the energy deficit and that of bitumen in the world m arket[11]. Several series of works on the production of road bitumen have been carried out to obtain a better quality of bitumen adaptable to practical requirements as well as to point out the mechanism of the reactions which can occur during the oxidation of the vacuum residue and the upgrading of heavy oil.

Methods

Results

Conclusion