Characterization of liquid products obtained from co-cracking of petroleum vacuum residue with coal and biomass

Co-processing of the petroleum vacuum residue (XVR) with coal and biomass (a Calotropis procera) has been performed in batch reactor under isothermal conditions at atmospheric pressure. The liquids obtained by co-processing have been characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), 13C NMR, gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and inductively coupled argon plasma (ICAP) analyses. FT-IR analysis showed that the liquid products derived from co-cracking of XVR + SC contained a few phenols, indicating that the higher hydrogen content of the XVR acted as a hydrogenation medium for the coal product in the co-cracking of the mixture. NMR analysis indicated that aromatic carbon contents decreased (about 10.8%) in the liquid products obtained from the co-cracking of XVR + SC compared to their theoretical average. GPC analysis showed that liquid products derived from co-cracking of XVR + SC are much more similar (having the almost same molecular weight distribution as XVR) to the liquid products from XVR than to the liquid products from coal, reflecting synergy in the co-cracking reaction. However, the liquid products derived from co-cracking of XVR + CL showed the liquids are comparatively more viscous than that of XVR indicating that there is a definite interaction when they are co-cracked together. It is also interesting that the liquid products obtained from co-cracking with coal and biomass contained less than 1 ppm of Ni and V, respectively. The detailed results obtained are being reported.