Upgradation of Pyrolysis Oil and Vacuum Residue Obtained from the Fractional Distillation of Bio-Crude Oil: A Review

Rising demand of transportation fuels, petrochemicals and the ever rising heavy residues of crude oil have resulted in a renewed interest in the processing of this heavy residue to generate useful lighter fuels and chemicals. Not only these heavy residue but also oil generated by the pyrolysis can be upgraded into useful energy component by using appropriate processing technology. In this connection an attempt has been initiated to upgrade vacuum residue oil obtained from fractional distillation of bio crude oil and pyrolysis oil.

Different researchers have worked on the upgradation of residue and pyrolysis oil, which includes delayed coking as a residue upgrading process, biological processing of vacuum distillation residue, atmospheric or vacuum oil residue hydro processing, low or moderate pressure technology for upgrading of heavy oils and residual, catalytic crude upgrading, catalytic upgrading of pyrolysis oil or steam reforming, pyrolysis oil upgrading by hydro treatment with Ru/C catalysts or zeolite-based catalyst.

This paper highlights the upgradation of vacuum residue oil by using solvent deasphalting (SDA) to obtain deasphalted oil. This can be further processed to lighter components through fluid catalytic converter (FCC) and upgradation of pyrolysis oil by deoxygenation in the presence of H2 and catalyst obtained from renewable sources, i.e. catalytic hydro treatment to obtain upgraded oil, which can be further processed to lighter components through FCC.