A green and efficient strategy for heavy oil hydrocracking: Liquid phase continuous arc discharge plasma for n-hexadecane conversion

This work utilized a novel liquid phase continuous arc (LCA) discharge for heavy oil upgrading, which was capable of directly generating a large-volume and continuous plasma within the oil. The impacts of hydrogen donors (water and ethanol) on the hydrocracking of the heavy oil model compound (n-hexadecane) were investigated. Meanwhile, the characteristics of LCA discharge plasma when ethanol and water were used as hydrogen donors were investigated. Additionally, the liquid phase and gas phase products were also examined. Furthermore, the reaction process of n-hexadecane hydrocracking was analyzed and discussed via Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) and thermodynamic analysis of product combination. The results demonstrate that the lightning ratio of n-cetane was approximately 73.7 % when water was served as the hydrogen donor, and this could be elevated to 84.4 %, when ethanol was utilized as the hydrogen supplier. This phenomenon could be attributed to ethanol's capacity to inhibit the formation of heavy by-products, thereby enhancing the yield of light products. Hydrocracking of n-hexadecane mainly took place through beta-C-C bond cleavage to form the liquid phase products dominated by C14 and the gas phase products dominated by C2.