Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Canada has large reserves of heavy oil and oilsands bitumen. Development of these vast reserves to provide clean fuel, energy and feedstock for the chemical and petrochemical industry will provide significant economic benefit for Canada. However, these heavy oil and bitumen deposits contain a large amount of hetero atoms that have to be removed. Organic sulfur/nitrogen compounds, upon combustion, can be converted into SOx and NOx, which result in acid rain. The new regulations on diesel fuels require sulfur content at the pump of 15 ppm, down from the previous 500 ppm, and it will be further reduced to 10 ppm in 2011. Meeting and exceeding the new fuel specifications presents a significant challenge to petroleum refiners, who want to achieve this at the lowest possible cost. As well, the existing hydrotreating technologies are difficult to remove sulfur compounds to less than 15 ppm. On the other hand, reduction in nitrogen compounds can significantly improve the performance of sulfur removal. The proposed research will focus on the development of a new adsorbent for selective removal of N compounds from liquid hydrocarbon fuels. This will help the participating industry, Imperial Oil Ltd. and other Canadian refineries to economically meet the new legislation.