Non-thermal Plasma Cracking of Residual Distillate and Vacuum Gas Oil

With the decreasing supply of light sweet crude oil, the importance of heavy crude oil is increasing. Correspondingly, the need for economical, viable processing methods to increase the value of heavy crude has increased. Current processing methods crack distillate byproducts, such as residual distillates and vacuum gas oil, into lighter components including gasoline and diesel. However, the cost and complexity of these cracking methods has limited these techniques to large-scale refinery operations. This project will develop a low cost, versatile cracking technology ¿ a simple, highly efficient, non-thermal plasma reactor ¿ that is able to process and crack heavy hydrocarbon materials in a rapid, continuous, and non-labor intensive manner, without large, complex, and energy intensive processing equipment. Phase I demonstrated the feasibility of the non-thermal plasma reactor by converting 75-80% of the heavy hydrocarbon content in vacuum gas oil (VGO) to gasoline and diesel fractions. Tolerance to sulfur and heavy metals over an extended period of time was demonstrated. In Phase II, (1) the reactor design will be optimized to improve cost, yield, and energy efficiency; (2) a preliminary design for a pre-pilot scale reactor, to be integrated with a small-scale refinery operation, will be developed; and (3) a scaled-up version (2 kW system) of the non-thermal plasma cracker system will be created. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The simple, low cost cracking technology could be implemented in the approximately 190 small refinery operations in the US, which are critical to meeting the Nation¿s liquid fuel supply