PetroBeam, Inc., 606 South Main Street, Sweetwater, TN, 37874, USA.
Top Curr Chem (Cham). 2016 Jun;374(3):34. doi: 10.1007/s41061-016-0035-1. Epub 2016 May 24.
A general trend in the oil industry is a decrease in the proven reserves of light crude oils so that any increase in future oil exploration is associated with high-viscous sulfuric oils and bitumen. Although the world reserves of heavy oil are much greater than those of sweet light oils, their exploration at present is less than 12 % of the total oil recovery. One of the main constraints is very high expenses for the existing technologies of heavy oil recovery, upgrading, transportation, and refining. Heavy oil processing by conventional methods is difficult and requires high power inputs and capital investments. Effective and economic processing of high viscous oil and oil residues needs not only improvements of the existing methods, such as thermal, catalytic and hydro-cracking, but the development of new technological approaches for upgrading and refining of any type of problem oil feedstock. One of the perspective approaches to this problem is the application of ionizing irradiation for high-viscous oil processing. Radiation methods for upgrading and refining high-viscous crude oils and petroleum products in a wide temperature range, oil desulfurization, radiation technology for refining used oil products, and a perspective method for gasoline radiation isomerization are discussed in this paper. The advantages of radiation technology are simple configuration of radiation facilities, low capital and operational costs, processing at lowered temperatures and nearly atmospheric pressure without the use of any catalysts, high production rates, relatively low energy consumption, and flexibility to the type of oil feedstock.
石油行业的一个普遍趋势是轻质原油已探明储量减少，因此未来的石油勘探任何增加都与高粘度含硫油和沥青有关。虽然重油的世界储量远大于甜轻质油，但目前对它们的勘探不到总石油回收的 12%。主要限制之一是重油回收、升级、运输和精炼现有技术的费用非常高。用常规方法处理重油很困难，需要高功率输入和大量资本投资。高粘性油和油渣的有效和经济处理不仅需要改进现有的方法，如热、催化和加氢裂化，还需要开发用于升级和精炼任何类型的问题油原料的新的技术方法。解决这个问题的一个有前途的方法是应用电离辐射处理高粘性油。本文讨论了在很宽的温度范围内升级和精炼高粘性原油和石油产品、脱硫、精炼用过的石油产品的辐射技术、以及用于汽油辐射异构化的有前途的方法。辐射技术的优点是辐射设备的结构简单、资本和运营成本低、在接近大气压力和较低温度下进行处理，无需使用任何催化剂、生产速度高、相对能耗低，并且对油原料的类型具有灵活性。
