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Process for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solidsProcess for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solids description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20090120844, Process for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solids. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
The present invention is related to a process for recovery of oil from tar sand (also called oil sands) and/or oil shale and upgrading the oil in the same process. Tar sand is found in enormous quantities in a number of countries, the greatest resources are found in Canada and consist of heavy oil and sand in natural resources in different depths. These resources have been the subject of intensive research in an effort to develop technologies for recovery of the oil from the sand. Thus, a number of different technologies exist. Alberta\'s most important mineral resources are oil and natural gas, and they account for about 90 percent of Alberta\'s income from mining. Alberta produces approximately two-thirds of Canada\'s oil and more than three-quarters of its natural gas. Nearly half of Alberta\'s oil is mined from vast oil sands, which are deposits of a heavy crude oil called bitumen. Alberta\'s oil sands represent the largest known deposits of bitumen in the world. The oil sands occur in three major areas of the province: the Athabasca River Valley in the northeast, the Peace River area in the north, and the Cold Lake region in east central Alberta. Bitumen is more costly to mine than conventional crude oil, which flows naturally or is pumped from the ground. This is because the thick black oil must be separated from the surrounding sand and water to produce a crude oil that can be further refined. During the 1950s and 1960s, oil deposits were discovered in other regions, such as the Peace River area and the Swan Hills, south of Lesser Slave Lake. By the late 1960s the last major oil deposits had been found. The bitumen, which contrary to normal crude found in deep reservoir, does not have the same light fractions as these, have been evaporated off over thousands of years. The bitumen thus consists of heavy molecules with a density exceeding 1.000 kg/dm3 (less than 10 API) and a viscosity 1000 times higher than light crude. In addition the tar sand contains sulphur over 4% by weight and hundreds of ppm with heavy metals. The content of organic matter in tar-sand can range from 5% by weight up to 20% by weight, and thus extraction of oil from tar sand involves huge mass transport. Because of the composition of the bitumen, it has to be upgraded before it can be refined in a refiner as light crude. Because of the economical potential of these huge resources, a number of different processes exist for the recovery of oil from tar sand. Such technologies involve biological, solvent, thermal and processes where the oil is washed out of the sand by superheated water. Because of the enormous amounts of sand (tailings) associated with tar sand extraction, the different processes face a number of environmental constrains. Contrary to tar sand, oil shale is shale containing organic matter known as keorgens which can not be washed or dissolved as for the bitumen in tar sand. To recover oil from oil shale, it must be heated to a temperature of 500-600 C whereby the organic matter is cracked into liquid products. As for tar sand, oil shale contains a number of unwanted constituents, which cause environmental constrains. And as for technologies for recovering oil from tar sand, there exist a number of different technologies for recovering oil from oil shale. The present invention is related to an energy self sustained process where a number of the obstacles with the existing technologies are solved, and which in addition to the oil recovery, upgrades the oil into a lighter product than any other existing technologies, remove sulphur in the order of 40% and heavy metals in the order of 90%. In addition the process disposes of tailings with limited environmental constraints as the inorganic matter (sand) is disposed of in dry condition. The process is a rapid “dry-wet” fluidised process where the sand is mixed into a fluidised reactor fuelled with part of the organic components in the tar sand. The combustion gases strip off the oil from the sand, together they act as a pneumatic carrier transporting sand and its associated gases to a cyclone reactor where the sand is separated from the gas stream, which then is routed to a condenser system. A portion of the condensed oil can be routed back into the stream via an atomisation nozzle for a second cracking whereby the process recovers and upgrades the oil in one operation without the need for upgrading units. To optimise collisions between the particles in order to obtain maximum shear forces between the solids the stream of sand, combustion gasses and hydrocarbon gasses are accelerated and retarded in a riser of varying diameter. The collisions between the particles give rise to a mild hydrogenation of the oil by sonoluminiscence of microscopic steam bubbles trapped between the colliding solid particles. When steam bubbles are trapped between unevenness in the tumbling particles, the steam is subject to an adiabatic compression whereby the temperature and pressure in the bubbles is raised several thousand times above overall temperature and pressure in the process. This causes water to enter into a supercritical state where water is cracked into hydrogen and hydroxyl radicals. Hydrogen, which is absorbed by the heavy oil chains, reduces their bonding whereby the impact forces from the tumbling grains can crack the molecules and the “explosion” of the microscopic steam bubbles takes place. The majority of the hydrogen is then released and react back with the hydroxyl radicals into water, but a part of the hydrogen causes a mild hydrogenation of the product. It is highly desirable to achieve good sand/oil mixing as early and as quickly as possible. The method described to achieve this requires the above-mentioned acceleration and retardation of the stream. Traditionally, steam is the medium used to maintain solid bed fluidity and movement in the riser. Steam, however, has a deleterious effect on the very hot solids that is met in residue cracking processes. Under these conditions steam causes hydrothermal deactivation of the catalyst in for example FCC-crackers. This is overcome by the present invention by using the off gasses from the fluidised bed reactor regenerator (CO/CO2 and hydrocarbon gasses) as the carrier of the solids, which will act as a catalyst in cracking of the oil. To have the process verified, a 2.5×2.5×3 m test rig was built and located at SINTEF ENERGY RESEARCH AS in Trondheim, Norway with a maximum power of 125 kW. Continue reading about Process for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solids... Full patent description for Process for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solids Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Process for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solids patent application. Patent Applications in related categories: 20090288994 - Process for extraction of bitumen from oilsands - Bitumen within raw oilsands may be cracked and fully recovered by light hydrocarbon extraction following exposure to modified natural zeolite catalysts under cracking conditions. The recovered bitumen is reduced in viscosity, with lower boiling point distributions. Effective cracking of oilsands bitumen using economical, abundant and readily disposable natural zeolites represents ... ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like Process for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solids or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Filtration apparatus and method Next Patent Application: Beneficiation of hydrocarbons from mineral matrices Industry Class: Mineral oils: processes and products ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the Process for simultaneous recovery and cracking/upgrading of oil from solids patent info. IP-related news and info Results in 2.32452 seconds Other interesting Feshpatents.com categories: Accenture , Agouron Pharmaceuticals , Amgen , AT&T , Bausch & Lomb , Callaway Golf paws |
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