The low temperature oxidation of Fosterton asphaltenes and its combustion kinetics

The influence of low temperature oxidation (LTO) on Fosterton oil sand asphaltenes (FOSA) is examined in this work. The Fosterton oil sand asphaltenes were subjected to air oxidation, at a low temperature, ca. 220 °C, for a specific period of time (6.33 h) in a fixed bed tubular reactor. The vent gases were analyzed for their content of CO, CO2, and oxygen. The m ratio (m=COCO​+CO2) of the fuel are obtained from effluent gas analysis. The LTO residue was then analyzed to determine its elemental composition. The low H/C ratio (0.8) found in the LTO residue suggests that it contains condensed polynuclear aromatic rings. The thermal behavior and combustion kinetics of the residue was investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The non-linear regression method was used to analyze the combustion reaction kinetics. Results show that the activation energy for the combustion of the asphaltene is 66.73 kJ/mol and the pre-exponential factor is 1.2 × 104 min−1.