Non-thermal Plasma Cracking of Residual Distillate and Vacuum Gas Oil

With the decreasing supply of light sweet crude oil, the importance of heavy crude oil is increasing. Correspondingly, the need for economically viable processing methods to enhance the value of heavy crude has increased. Currently, these enhancements are achieved by cracking distillate byproducts, such as residual distillates and vacuum gas oil, into lighter components including gasoline and diesel. However, the cost and complexity of current cracking methods, most notably fluidized catalytic cracking, has generally limited these techniques to large-scale refinery operations. This project will develop a low cost, versatile cracking method that will allow small refineries to cost-effectively process heavy crude oil using a simple, highly efficient, non-thermal plasma reactor. In this approach, the heavy hydrocarbon molecules will be processed and cracked in a rapid, continuous, and non-labor intensive manner, without the requirement for large, complex, and energy intensive processing equipment. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The low-cost cracking technology could be implemented in the approximately 190 small refinery operations in the U.S., which are critical to meeting the Nation¿s liquid fuel supply.