Synthetic Crude Oil from Alberta’s Tar Sands Franco Berruti Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources

Alberta: Energy Resources  80% of Canada’s oil (70 million m 3 )  86% of Canada’s natural gas (90 billion m 3 )  40% of Canada’s coal (35 million tonnes)  100% of Canada’s tar sands  250 billion cubic meters  48 billion potentially recoverable  35% of entire world’s reserves of crude oil (!)

Introduction: Tar Sands Resources

The Tar Sands of Northern Alberta

Alberta: Oil from Tar Sands  Syncrude Canada Ltd.  Present Syncrude’s production:  > 350,000 barrels/day or 20% of Canada’s oil consumption  Suncor:  100,000 barrels/day  Mobil  Shell  Others

Tar Sands Characteristics  About 85% to 95% is:  water-wet sand (quartz)  clay  Water  5% to 15% is bitumen  black, tar-like, thick as honey  large carbon/hydrogen ratio  vanadium, nickel, sulphur, iron...

Tar Sands Mining Overburden removed using electric shovels and moved using giant trucks weighing as much as a B-747 Tar sands excavated using draglines with booms 25 stories high and buckets big enough to hold a bus Bucketwheel excavators load them on conveyor belts (36 km) carrying 6,400 tonnes per hour on each of 4 lines Hydrotransport is the most recent technology used to carry the tar sands from the Aurora Mine to the processing plant

Tar Sands Processing zHot water extraction zFroth flotation and sand + tailings separation zCentrifugation zBitumen upgrading

Bitumen Upgrading Coking: Fluid Bed Coker (Exxon) carbon rejection process Hydrotreating: L-C Finer (Lummus-Crest) hydrogen addition process

Primary Upgrading Process 3 fluid bed cokers design capacity (73,000 to 150,000 barrels/day each) today: 200,000 barrels/day (x 24 months) Bitumen converted into: lighter gasoil-type of liquids (80%) coke (15%) gas (5%) (incl. 115 t/day/unit of SO 2 ) Fluid Bed Coking (I)

Upgrading Process: Thermal cracking Uses fluidized bed of downflowing hot fine coke particles (80 tonnes/min). Coke formed is deposited on the coke particles themselves Partial combustion in a separate burner (25% of coke is burnt) restores the size and inventory and provides heat to the process Fluid Bed Coking (II)

Fluid Bed Coking (III) Fluid bed coking reactors (biggest fluid beds in the world!) 2 cokers are 40 m tall and up to 10 m in diameter coupled with a 15 m diameter burner New coker is 30% LARGER! T approximately = 530 o C Bitumen introduced at 6 axial locations through > 80 nozzles (each processing approx 6 kg/s of bitumen)

Fluid Bed Coker Process 650 o C 530 o C Fluid Bed Reactor Burner

Fluid Coker Reactor Nozzles inject liquid bitumen vaporizes on contact with hot coke particles Vaporized hydrocarbons flow up center region of reactor Coke particles flow down the near-wall region of the reactor

Our Research: Jets - Fluid Bed Interactions

Our Research: Agglomerates Attrition 0.94 m 0.34 m 0.21 m 0.10 m Fluidized bed Attrition nozzle Attrition gas in Container to collect fines P Cyclone Compressed gas PT 0.50 m

Equipment: Small Fluidized Beds

Equipment: Large Fluidized Bed

Research Projects Jets visualization and characterization Effects of liquid and solid properties Jets stability and performance Liquid-solid mixing New and novel nozzles designs Behavior of solid-liquid agglomerates Attrition of agglomerates Modeling the cokers hydrodynamics Kinetic studies of thermal cracking Measurement techniques

Nozzle X-ray Source Fluid Bed (0.2 m × 0.2 m) Digitized Pictures at 30 frames s -1

Jets Visualization b. Air + Ethanol Injectiona. Air Injection o L jet 5-7 o Jet half-angle Nozzle U o = 5 cm/s T ~ 22 o C

X-ray Movie-I Air + Ethanol Injection

X-ray Movie-II Gas-Liquid Injection

Evolution of liquid-mixing along jet by temperature measurements L T = 3.27 cm L T = 5.27 cm L T = 7.27 cm L/S

Liquid-Solid Mixing Studies Using tracers Using flux probes

New and Novel Nozzle Designs

Attrition of agglomerates

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Research Outcomes New Knowledge and Understanding Mathematical Models and Simulations Graduate Student Training Research Industrial Training Publications Patents Technology Transfer/Commercialization