Deasphalting of a long residue using ultrafiltration inorganic membranes

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:213122

Guizard, C; Rambault, D; Cot, L ^[1]

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1. Ecole Nationale Superieure de Chimie, Montpellier (France); and others

Separation by membrane technology is now a well established technique for water purification and other aqueous applications. Non-aqueous applications, especially in the chemical and the petroleum industries, are a more recent development. The ceramic membranes available on the market are reported to have excellent pore size uniformity, thermal and mechanical properties superior to competitive polymer membranes and high stability in organic media. Therefore, their specific properties make them ideally suited for direct deasphalting of petroleum residues by ultrafiltration. Inorganic ultrafiltration membranes have been successfully applied to remove directly asphaltenes from a long residue Basrha; an asphaltene retention rate higher than 75% and a permeate flux as high as 40 l/h.m{sup 2} have been achieved with a zirconia/carbon composite membrane with pore size of 6.3 nm in diameter. Typical process parameters are a temperature of 150{degrees}C, a transmembrane pressure of 8 bar and a fluid velocity of 11.5 m/s. Fouling of the membrane was not evidenced over a period of 500 minutes.

• OSTI ID: 213122
• Report Number(s): CONF-940713--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CARBON
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
DEASPHALTING
MEMBRANES
PORE STRUCTURE
RESIDUES
ULTRAFILTRATION
ZIRCONIUM OXIDES