Preparation of hydrogen donor solvent for asphaltenes efficient liquid-phase conversion via heavy cycle oil selective hydrogenation

Abstract Hydrogen donor solvents are the active hydrogen source for asphaltenes liquid-phase hydroconversion, in which the naphthenic aromatics are the ideal hydrogen donating components. Heavy cycle oil (HCO), produced by fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) containing a large amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), has a low hydrogen-donating ability (HDA). The aim of this paper is to improve the HDA of HCO by selective hydrogenation. On the basis of HDA analysis, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR)data and average molecular structure parameters, the effect of reaction conditions on HDA were investigated to confirm the essence of hydrogen donating performance. Through asphaltenes liquid-phase hydroconversion experiments, and using hydrogenated HCO (Hy-HCO) as the hydrogen donor solvent, asphaltenes conversion was effectively improved and coke yield was greatly reduced. After selective hydrogenation, the low-value HCO obtained the key components via selective hydrogenation, thereby becoming an optimal hydrogen donor solvent for asphaltenes conversion. Hydrocarbon composition analysis showed that naphthenebenzenes with the maximal HDA was a key component for hydrogen donating performance of Hy-HCO for asphaltenes hydroconversion.