Residuum, molecular types

Figure 2-77 shows how the weight distributions of the different molecular types vary during the fractional distillation of a naphthenic crude oil. Saturated aliphatic hydrocarbons (i.e., paraffins and naphthenes) are the predominant constituents in the light gasoline fraction. As the boiling point is raised, the paraffin content decreases, and the NSO content increases continuously. About 75 wt% of tbe residuum is composed of aromatics and NSO compounds. 

Figure 3. Distribution of molecular types and sizes in a residuum (4)...

Porphyrin and nonporphyrin metals associated with asphaltenes have not been easy to identify in terms of molecular structure. This is partly due to the fact that the characteristics (i.e., spectra) of all possible model nonporphyrin compounds have not been studied. Nonporphyrin metals are probably small polar molecules that precipitate as asphaltenes (Filby, 1975) or complex at defect sites in large aromatic sheet structures of the type shown in Fig. 10. Porphyrins with increased aromaticity and systems with low aromaticity due to discontinued ring conjugation are both characterized as nonporphyrin species. These compounds do not have the characteristic visible absorption spectra and hence are not readily identified. It is also possible that some of the porphyrin in the residuum may not be extracted and identified due to intermolecular association with the asphaltene-generating molecules. 

In recent years, a more severe type of hydrogen treating has been added to refinery processing systems in which heavy distillates (gas oil) and residuum are hydrotreated to remove sulfur and to convert these heavier hydrocarbons to products of lower molecular weight. The addition of "external" hydrogen increases the H/C ratio of the products substantially above that of the feed stocks. The use of these hydrocracking and... 

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