Deasphalting of Olefin Pyrolysis Fuel Oil by Combination of Chemical–Physical Methods

This work investigates the effect of different conditions of PFO thermal cracking from two PFO samples on liquid, solid and gas product yield and asphaltene removal efficiency in a new designed experimental setup. No need to use a catalyst, simple operating system and experiment conditions, the ability to use water as a cheap carrier gas and high asphaltene extraction efficiency without the use of solvents are outstanding benefits of this method to upgrade PFO. The yields of the liquid, solid and gas products were compared in various operating conditions and the optimum experimental conditions were obtained. The results revealed the best thermal cracking condition of PFO in terms of liquid yield and asphaltene removal in this setup for samples. The optimum conditions were 390 and 380 °C for reactor temperature of PFO-1 and PFO-2, respectively; 150 °C for temperature of carrier gas and 100 ml/min for carrier gas flow rate. In these circumstances about 70 and 53 wt% of the liquid product, 25 wt% of the solid products, and 5 wt% of the gas product are generated while the asphaltene separation was reached about 95 and 96.5%.