Direct Hydrogen Production from Extra-Heavy Crude Oil under Supercritical Water Conditions Using a Catalytic (Ni-Co/Al2O3) Upgrading Process

The generation of hydrogen from unconventional oil is expected to increase significantly during the next decade. It commonly known that an environmentally friendly alternative fuel, and its production would partially cover gap in energy market requirements. However, developing new cheap catalysts for crude still a challenging area field petroleum petrochemical industry. This study presents approach synthesizing applying promising based on Ni, Co, Ni-Co alloys are supported by aluminum oxide Al2O3 extra-heavy Tahe Oil Field (China), presence supercritical water (SCW). obtained were characterized via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface analysis, transmission (TEM), and, X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). XRD data showed 3.22% Co2+ Co/Al2O4 catalyst, 10.89% Ni2+ Ni/Al2O4 1.51% 2.42% Ni-CoAl2O3 bimetallic catalyst. BET measurements ranging 3.04 162 m2/g, average particle size 0.037 0.944 µm, micropore volumes 0.000377 0.004882 cm3/g. thermal, SCW, catalytic upgrading processes studied samples conducted discontinuous autoclave reactor 2 h at temperature 420 °C. results revealed thermal yielded 1.059 mol.% H2, SCW led 6.132 H2; meanwhile, provided maximal rate with 11.783 mol.%. Moreover, NiAl2O3 have been found possess good affinity selectivity toward H2 (11.783 mol.%) methane CH4 (40.541 mol.%). According our results, increases yield upgraded (from 34.68 wt.% 58.83 wt.%) while decreasing amount coke 51.02 33.64 due significant reaction zone, which reduces free-radical recombination, thus, improves recovery. combination synthetized resulted decrease asphaltene content oil, 28% 2%, as result redistribution over carbons (H/C) processes, where it increased 1.39 1.41 reached 1.63 transformed form (CoNi3S4), after processing, heteroatom removal oxidative adsorptive desulfurization promoted. These findings contribute expanding body knowledge situ upgrading.