Abstract
The conversion of low-grade heavy oil into value-added chemicals has garnered significant attention. Plasma is a potentially cleaner, environmentally friendly, and faster method of cracking heavy oil. In this work, ethanol-assisted cracking of hexadecane, a model compound of heavy oil, to produce valuable light fuels such as syngas, C2 hydrocarbons, and gasoline was investigated under ambient conditions using liquid-phase pulsed-discharge plasma. The gas, liquid, and solid products formed by cracking were analyzed in detail. Single discharge energy and discharge time were the key influences on the cracking reaction. The increase in single discharge energy improved gas and light hydrocarbon yields and inhibited the production of heavy materials, with the maximum gas generation flow rate of 96.1 mL/min. Prolonging the discharge time did not significantly affect the light product selectivity (>97 %). The energy consumption of the reaction was also evaluated and showed a low level of energy consumption. At a single discharge energy of 2.28 mJ and a discharge of 15 min, it obtained 129.9 mg of light hydrocarbons, 13.6 % n-hexadecane conversion, 9.2 kWh/kg energy consumption for n-hexadecane conversion, and 4.0 kWh/m3 energy consumption for gas generation, and the mass balance of the product was determined.
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