Continuous Thermodynamics Approach for Hydrogen Solubility Prediction

Abstract Accurate heavy petroleum fractions characterization is challenging when modeling hydroprocessing reactors¹,², given that predicting the hydrogen solubility in the hydrocarbon mixture is essential³,⁴. The continuous thermodynamics approach has been successfully used to characterize complex mixtures such as crude oils and various petroleum fractions in the liquid-vapor equilibrium prediction⁵,⁶. For this reason, this technique used in the hydrogen solubility prediction specifically for heavy petroleum fractions can contribute to improving the accuracy of the results. In this work, we present a characterizing methodology for vacuum gas oils using the continuous thermodynamics approach, implemented for the hydrogen solubility estimation by the Augmented Grayson Streed method⁷, achieving a reduction in the global average absolute deviation from 22.5% to 11% compared with the experimental data, under temperature and pressure ranges of 459-653 K and 1.0-12.5 MPa, respectively. Therefore, it is concluded that the characterization methodology implemented contributes to reliably estimate the hydrogen solubility in vacuum gas oils, which in turn represents a potential benefit in the design and operation of hydroprocessing reactors models.