Nitrogen Removal from Oil: A Review

The selective removal of nitrogen-containing compounds from oil and oil fractions is of interest because of the potential deleterious impact of such compounds on products and processes. Problems caused by nitrogen-containing compounds include gum formation, acid catalyst inhibition and deactivation, acid–base pair-related corrosion, and metal complexation. A brief overview of the classes of nitrogen compounds found in oil is provided. The review of processes to remove nitrogen from oil emphasizes studies that investigated denitrogenation of industrial feedstocks, such as refinery fractions, heavy oils, and bitumens. The main topics covered are hydrotreating, liquid–liquid phase partitioning, solvent deasphalting, adsorption, chemical conversion followed by separation, and microbial conversion. Chemical conversion processes include oxidative denitrogenation, N-alkylation, complexation with metal salts, and conversion in high-temperature water. There are many processes for denitrogenation by separation of the nitrogen-rich products from oil without removing the nitrogen group from the nitrogen-containing compounds. As a consequence, most of these processes are viable mainly for removal of nitrogen from low-nitrogen-content oils, typically with <0.1 wt % N. At present, hydrodenitrogenation appears to be the only industrially viable process for nitrogen removal from oils with high nitrogen content.