Investigation of the Process of Catalytic Steam Cracking of Heavy Oil in the Presence of Disperse Catalysts. Part 1. The Choice of Optimal Operation Conditions for Steam Reforming in the Absence of the Catalyst

Abstract

The process of steam cracking of heavy oil in the absence of catalyst was studied in (water) semiflow and static modes at 425 °C. In the semiflfow mode, water was established to behave preferably as a physical agent to favor distillation of hydrocarbon fractions and to prevent their coking. In the static mode, a decrease in the coke yield against that in the semiflow mode was observed, while the addition of water resulted in an increase in the conversion of high-boiling fractions and in the yield of light fractions among the liquid products. The obtained data led us to conclude about favorable behavior of water for transformation of heavy oil and about potentialities of the steam cracking in the production of light synthetic and/or semisynthetic oil.