Upgrading Heavy Crude Oil Potentials through Microwave Assisted Distillation

The use of microwave heating technique has shown tremendous research interest and potentials. As demand from oil is increasing worldwide, heavy crude oil are often priced at a discount to lighter ones due to low proportion of low- boiling constituents (light fractions) and high concentration of impurities which create many operational and quality problems. This work aimed to introduce a novel for improving low- boiling fractions yield using microwave irradiation without addition of chemicals or additives. Microwave oven model HR-7802D was employed and a laboratory atmospheric distillation was conducted on heavy crude oil after been irradiated with microwave for few minutes at various power rates. Distillation results showed that, microwave heating is very effective at low- power rates of 480 and 560Watts, which gave a higher products yield. Microwave heating is feasible, environmentally friendly and has the potential to be used as an alternative to conventional heating.