Russian scientists have now installed the world’s largest installation for plasma pyrolysis of oil – it allows the use of electric discharges for processing fuel oil at low temperatures and without additional reagents. The researchers’ work was published in the journal Energies.
Modern methods of processing heavy oil have a number of disadvantages: high temperatures and pressures, large amounts of hydrogen and the fuel itself – which leads to significant emissions of carbon dioxide – and require specialized equipment.
These problems can be avoided by using plasma reactors. The radicals and ions formed during plasma pyrolysis under the influence of electric discharges activate the molecules of organic compounds in the oil, as a result they are divided into smaller ones, which can then be used in many chemical processes. However, the application of the method is still limited by the size of the reactors.
It was collected by scientists from the NNSTU named after RE. Alekseev, FSRC “Crystalography and Photonics” RAS, Kurchatov Institute and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the installation consists of a reactor, a control system and a system for collecting the resulting gases with recording of electric discharges. The reactor volume is 300 cubic centimeters, which is 7.5 times more than previous models.
The voltage of 500 volts turned out to be optimal for the operation of the installation: in this case, the energy consumption was the lowest, and the yield of valuable gaseous hydrocarbons was the highest – up to 46.5% of the total mass. During the process, hydrogen, acetylene, ethylene, methane and other hydrocarbons commonly used in the chemical industry were released.
Among solid-phase products, scientists have found disordered graphite and multilayer carbon nanotubes that can be used in electronics. These products also contain sulfur, oxygen, vanadium and nickel atoms.
Source: Ferra
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