DEVELOPMENT OF NiMo/?-Al2O3 CATALYST ON ATMOSPHERIC RESIDUE HYDRODEMETALLIZATION PROCESS IN PT PERTAMINA RU VI BALONGAN

• Main Author: Eka Putri D, Sarah
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/42568
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Petroleum is currently the world's main energy source, especially to be used as fuel. Oil consumption keeps increasing, while light and medium oil reserves continue to decline. The composition of atmospheric residue in heavy oil is much higher than light and medium oil. Production of fuel oil from petroleum can be increased by utilizing atmospheric residues through the Residue Catalytic Cracking (RCC) process to produce light and medium fraction oil. However, atmospheric residues need to go through hydrotreating (HDT) process, because they contain many impurities in the form of metal compounds, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen which can poison the RCC catalyst. HDT is a catalytic reaction between petroleum and hydrogen which aims to remove impurities in atmospheric residues. Hydrodemetallization (HDM) is the first stage of HDT process is which removes metal components in the residue. Nickel and vanadium which have large molecule size can cause catalyst pore plugging, thus shortening the catalyst life and reducing catalyst performance. Therefore, ?-Al2O3 support with large pore diameter is needed so that metal components can be deposited evenly throughout the catalyst. Support pore diameter can be modified through hydrothermal process at temperatures of 175, 200, 225, 250, and 300oC with 4 and 8 hour hydrothermal time variations. Two other variations were synthesized using Chalco boehmite and 4,4% P additive, then went through hydrothermal process using the best temperature and time variation. Afterwards, the ?-Al2O3 support is impregnated with 8% MoO3 and 2% NiO to test its activity using a batch reactor at a pressure of 150 bar and a temperature of 380oC. The percentage of nickel and vanadium removal is calculated using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis. Catalyst is also characterized using the BET and XRD methods. According to the result, hydrothermal process can increase the pore diameter by transforming ?-Al2O3 to boehmite and increasing the crystallite size. The highest HDM activity was achieved by NiMo/A3-2504 catalyst, which was added by 4,4% P then went through hydrothermal process at 250oC for 4 hours.