FCC coprocessing oil sands heavy gas oil and canola oil. 3. Some cracking characteristics

Coprocessing of bitumen-derived feeds and biomass through a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) route has the potential to assist in the reduction of fuel and petroleum product carbon footprints while meeting government regulatory requirements on renewable transportation fuels. This approach is desirable because green house gas (GHG) emissions for producing renewable biofuels are significantly lower than those for fossil fuels, and coprocessing can be executed using existing refining infrastructure to save capital cost. The present study investigates the specific FCC performances of pure heavy gas oil (HGO) derived from oil sands synthetic crude, and a mixture of 15 v% canola oil in HGO using a commercial equilibrium catalyst under typical FCC conditions. Cracking experiments were performed using a bench-scale Advanced Cracking Evaluation (ACE) unit at fixed weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) of 8 h⁻¹, 490–530 °C, and catalyst/oil ratios of 4–12 g/g. This work focuses on some cracking phenomena resulting from the presence of oxygen in the blend—a lower heat requirement for cracking due to the exothermic water formation, which also entails lower hydrogen yield at a given severity. The distribution of feed oxygen in gaseous and liquid products, the mitigation in GHG emissions, and the technological and economical advantages of the coprocessing option are also discussed.