Chemical Engineering January 2012 - 13

Know-how
for Your Success
PDVSA will commercialize a heavy-oil
upgrading process
enezuela's state-run petroleum company, PDVSA Petroleo,
S.A. (PDVSA, Caracas; www.pdvsa.com), will commercialize
a company-developed process for upgrading
heavy crude oil in its Puerto La Cruz refinery, about 300
km (190 miles) east of Caracas. The 210,000-bbl/d plant
will employ PDVSA's HDH Plus process (for hydrocracking,
distillation and hydrotreating) to produce light and middle
distillates and vacuum gasoil from heavy crude. The refinery
specializes in light crude oil products and the new
facilities will enable PDVSA to expand the output of such
products from Venezuela's abundant heavy crude reserves.
HDH is said to have a conversion rate of more than 90%
V
in a single pass, versus about 65% for traditional processes.
The process operates at 450-480°C and a moderate
pressure of 1,900 psig. It uses a low-cost iron oxide
catalyst that can be disposed of after one pass, thereby
avoiding the problem of catalyst poisoning by metals that
occur in heavy oil. A contract for detailed engineering,
procurement support and construction management services
for the project has been awarded to Chiyoda Corp.
(www.chiyoda-corp.com), together with JGC Corp. (both
Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.co.jp) and Inelectra SACA, a
Venezuelan engineering company.
Making biodiesel with SC methanol
A
team from the School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti
Sains Malaysia (Penang; www.eng.usm.my) has carried
out a study for optimizing non-catalytic supercritical
(SC) methanol extraction and transesterification of Jatropha
curcas seeds to produce biodiesel fuel.
Jatropha curcas is a species of flowering plant native
to the American tropics. The seeds contain up to 40 wt.%
oil that can be processed to produce high-quality biodiesel
fuel. Several methods for processing the plant's oil to produce
biodiesel have been developed.
The team says its method promises to be superior to
conventional biodiesel processing regarding reaction time,
product separation, fatty acid methyl ester yield, and
process integration. It used a high-pressure batch reactor
with n-hexane as a co-solvent. Methanol was selected
due to its mild supercritical condition (513.15K, 8.1 MPa)
and low boiling point (338.15K) for easier separation. At
higher temperature and pressure (300°C and 24 MPa), the
extraction of oil from the seeds was more efficient than in
the case of conventional oil extraction, either with chemical
solvent or mechanical pressing. Also, no catalyst was
required, which greatly simplified downstream processes
such as catalyst separation and washing.
Supercritical methanol served as both oil-extraction
solvent and as a reagent for the esterification and transesterification
reactions, which proceed simultaneously in
the reactor. Co-solvent is used to accelerate the initial oilextraction
phase and to improve the overall kinetics of
the reaction.
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Chemical Engineering January 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering January 2012
