ACID REMOVAL FROM CRUDE OILS BY CATALYTIC ESTERIFICATION NAFTENIC ACID CATALIZE BY Mg/Al HYDROTALCITE

ML DIEUZEIDE; NICOLAS REDONDO; NORMA AMADEO

CATALYSIS TODAY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2020 vol. 353 p. 82 - 87

0920-5861

The presence of relatively high levels of naphthenic acids in crude oil may cause seriouscorrosion problem at temperature between 200ºC and 400ºC. One of the viableprocesses for decreasing acidity is the esterification of the present acids using an alcoholsuch as methanol. Therefore, the aim of this work is to develop a solid catalyst for theesterification reaction of 3-cyclopentylpropionic acid representative of the naphthenicacids.The esterification reaction is carried out at 80°C, 3.5 kg/cm2 of pressure in amechanically stirred batch reactor, using Mg-Al hydrotalcite (Mg/Al = 4) with differentactivation treatments as catalyst. These solids are characterized by N2 sorptometry andX ray diffraction. The higher concentration of Bronsted basic sites present in uncalcinedhydrotalcite would explain the satisfactory performance obtained. TAN decreased 90%by operating at a temperature as low as 80°C after 60 minutes of reaction. The catalyticactivity is evaluated at different reaction conditions such as, mass of catalyst, stirringspeed and reaction temperature. A kinetic study for heterogeneous esterification of 3-cyclopentylpropionic acid with methanol was performed.