Characterization of commercial ceramic adsorbents and its application on naphthenic acids removal of petroleum distillates

• Published in: Materials research (São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil) Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 219 - 225
• Main Authors: Silva, Juliana Pereira, Senna, Lilian Ferreira de, Lago, Dalva Cristina Baptista do, Silva Jr, Paulo Ferreira da, Dias, Elton Gonçalves, Figueiredo, Marco Antônio Gaya de, Chiaro, Sandra Shirley Ximenes
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: ABM, ABC, ABPol 01-06-2007; Associação Brasileira de Metalurgia e Materiais (ABM); Associação Brasileira de Cerâmica (ABC); Associação Brasileira de Polímeros (ABPol)
• Subjects: adsorption; alumina; clay; ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL; MATERIALS SCIENCE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY; METALLURGY & METALLURGICAL ENGINEERING; petroleum derivatives; adsorption; petroleum derivatives; alumina; clay
• ISSN: 1516-1439; 1980-5373; 1516-1439
• DOI: 10.1590/S1516-14392007000200021

The mixture of carboxylic acids present in petroleum oil and directly responsible for its acidity and corrosiveness in liquid phase during the refining process is termed 'naphthenic acids'. These acids are also present in the distilled fraction of petroleum, causing several problems in the final product quality. The carboxylic acids can be removed from petroleum distilled fractions by adsorption in porous materials. Until now, ion exchange resins were thought to be the best adsorbents for this process, which would probably increase its cost. Here, two commercial adsorbents (clay and activated alumina) were characterised by a set of physicochemical techniques and evaluated according to their capacity to remove naphthenic acids from a light petroleum fraction. The influence of a thermal treatment prior to the adsorption was studied. A high reduction of the total acid number (TAN) values was verified in the residual oils from both adsorbents, although there was competition among all the compounds present in the light oil fraction for the adsorption sites, which can be probably related to the thermal pre-treatment. These results were related to corrosion yield experiments, and it was observed that the adsorbent pretreatment also affected the reduction in corrosion yields for both alumina and clay. 27 refs.