Kinetic study of distillation and cracking of heavy oil on bimodal meso–macroporous materials of silica and aluminosilicate by thermogravimetry

Bimodal silica and aluminosilicate materials containing mesopores and macropores were synthesized by hydrothermal method using sodium silicate, aluminum nitrate, P123 triblock copolymer, n-decane, hydrochloric acid and water. The uncalcined silica compound was previously characterized by thermogravimetry, and the calcined materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction, infrared absorption spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The obtained materials have bimodal characteristics with mesopores and macropores in their structures, which pores are ideal for processing bulky molecules, such as hydrocarbons present in heavy oil. In this work, the synthesized silica and aluminosilicate were used as materials for distillation and cracking of a petroleum sample with o API = 17.4. The process was evaluated by thermogravimetry, in the temperature range from 25 to 900 °C, in a nitrogen atmosphere. The determination of activation energies ( E a ) as a function of the degree of conversion was obtained by using the Ozawa–Flynn–Wall kinetic model and at heating rates of 5, 10 and 20 °C min −1 . It was observed that the catalytic cracking of the oil presented E a of 196 kJ mol −1 for 90% conversion. At the same conversion, for the oil containing 10% of Si-MBB catalyst, the E a decreased to 170 kJ mol −1 and for AlSi-BMM, the E a was 155 kJ mol −1 , showing the efficiency of bimodal materials containing mesopores and macropores in its structure for processing of heavy oil.