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Is it possible to remove metals (Fe,Ni,V) from vacuum slop or vacuum residue streams? If yes, how?
 
Answers
11/07/2016 A: Saleh Daryabari, Senior Process Engineer of RCD and RFCC, Arak Refinery, daryabari@gmail.com
By applying solvent deasphalting, as a rule of thumb you can remove 80% metals by 80% DAO yield.
30/06/2016 A: Morgan Rodwell, Fluor Canada Limited, morgan.rodwell@fluor.com
These metals are bound up in the hydrocarbon molecules, so removing them means either cracking the molecules or removing the molecules that contain the hetero-atoms.
Therefore, Option 1 would be hydrocracking (e.g. LC-Fining, H-Oil, EST), although this is very expensive and would also remove sulfur and nitrogen and make light products. Option 2 would be solvent deasphalting (e.g. ROSE), which would remove the heavier molecules which contain most of metal complexes. This process would result in a stream of highly viscous (solid at room temperature) asphatene that would need to find a home as a product or feed to another unit.
There is no simply or low-cost way to remove these metals and leave the stream otherwise untouched.
30/06/2016 A: Keng Chung, Well Resources Inc., kengchung@hotmail.com
Consider SELEX-Asp, the game-changer commercial technology for selective removal of asphaltenes, which also takes out all inorganic matters. See the following publications:

PTQ, Q4, 2006, p99-105
OGJ, April 5, 2010 issue, p52-59
OGJ, June 6, 2016 issue, p70-77
OGJ, January 20, 1997 issue, p66-69