Energy & Fuels, Vol.18, No.5, 1472-1481, 2004
Combustion reaction kinetics studies of Turkish crude oils
In this research, sixteen experiments were conducted to study the combustion reaction kinetics of Turkish crude oils (Bati Raman, Camurlu, Raman, Adlyaman, Garzan, Karakus and Beykan) in a limestone medium. A mixture of the limestone and the crude oil was subjected to a controlled heating program under a constant flow rate of air. The produced gas was analyzed for its oxygen and carbon oxides contents. Although the molar CO2/CO ratios vary during low-temperature oxidation (LTO), for fuel deposition (FD) and high-temperature oxidation (HTO), these values can be indicated at different temperatures. A decrease in the atomic H/C ratio with an increase in temperature was observed for all runs. The activation energies of the Camurlu, Bati Raman, and Raman crude oils for both fuel deposition and high-temperature oxidation reactions were observed to be similar. For medium-gravity oils (Adlyaman and Garzan), the activation energies for the high-temperature oxidation reaction is higher than that for the fuel deposition reaction. For the LTO reaction, the activation energies are almost twice those of FD and HTO reactions for each crude oil. The activation energies are almost independent of the gravity of the oil used. The Arrhenius constant is not affected by the API gravity of the oils.