Chevron patents upgrading process

October 9, 2008 SAN RAMON -- Darush Farshid of Larkspur, Calif., James Murphy of Vallejo, Calif., and Bruce Reynolds of Martinez, Calif., have developed a process for upgrading heavy oil.

According to the abstract released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Applicants have developed a new residuum full hydroconversion slurry reactor system that allows the catalyst, unconverted oil, hydrogen, and converted oil to circulate in a continuous mixture throughout an entire reactor with no confinement of the mixture. The mixture is separated internally, within one of more of the reactors, to separate only the converted oil and hydrogen into a vapor product while permitting the unconverted oil and the slurry catalyst to continue on into the next sequential reactor as a liquid product. A portion of the unconverted oil is then converted to lower boiling point hydrocarbons in the next reactor, once again creating a mixture of unconverted oil, hydrogen, converted oil, and slurry catalyst. Further hydroprocessing may occur in additional reactors, fully converting the oil. The oil may alternately be partially converted, leaving a concentrated catalyst in unconverted oil which can be recycled directly to the first reactor."

The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,431,822 on Oct. 7.

The patent has been assigned to Chevron U.S.A. Inc., San Ramon, Calif.

The original application was filed on Dec. 16, 2005, and is available at: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,431,822.PN.&OS=PN/7,431,822&RS=PN/7,431,822.

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