| 摘要 |
A pretreatment process is described for heavy hydrocarbon oil feedstock, such as oils extracted from tar sands. The feedstock is passed through a heated, continuous flow electron or x-ray treatment zone. The process is designed to allow the feedstock to be conditioned with ozone-containing air, steam or a hydrogen donor gas prior to electron/x-ray treatment. The ozone-containing air stream may be the stream produced in the electron treatment zone. After conditioning, the heavy oil is heated to a specified temperature and uniformly treated with high-energy beams of electrons or x-rays. A key feature of the invention is the electron/x-ray treatment zone may use multiple accelerators or a beam splitter to ensure acceptable dose distributions in the flowing feedstock. Another key feature is the recirculation of volatiles back into the feedstock. According to the novel feature, the process produces a treated feedstock having a lower average molecular weight and boiling point than the original feedstock, without significant coke formation. The fraction of gas oil collected during distillation is increased significantly.
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