Desulfurization Study of Hydrocarbon Molecules by Plasma Process for Gas/oil Applications

During these last years, many investigations have been made on sulphur elimination processes from hydrocarbon feedstocks because of environmental regulations which are more and more strict. This is a study on a plasma process dedicated to heavy hydrocarbon hydrotreatment and hazardous substances removing such as sulphur compounds. It is a co-processing of a fluidized spouted bed and an inductively coupled plasma working at atmospheric pressure. A high flow of hydrogen radicals is generated and a rapid quench of the plasma leads to an increase of hydrogen radical lifetime and promotes chemical reactions of desulfurization at low temperature (7OCNOO K). The primary objective of this work is to understand the cleavage of C-S bond under these plasma conditions. To this end, thermodynamic calculations are done and preliminary experiments are carried out with different mixtures where n-hexadecaue is chosen as the model molecule in hydrocarbon hydrocracking, and sulphur compounds are added in small amounts (0-1 % S wt). Compounds such as dimethyl sulphide, 2-butanethiol, benzothiophene and thiophene are. currently studied. The influence of CH3". H". HS" and PhS" (C&sS") is also considered.