Co-refining of bio oils and fossil oils to fuel (SHC & FCC)

Slurry hydrocracking (SHC) is an oil refinery process that is primarely used to upgrade the parts of crude oil that have the highest boiling point (vacuum residue). This is accomplished by mixing the feedstock with a catalyst to a slurry and treating it at high temperature (400-500 ° C) and high pressure (100-200 bar) under a flow of hydrogen. The technology has great potential to be able to upgrade bio-based oils together with fossil oils by reacting oxygen in the bio-oils with the hydrogen gas and effectively removing oxygen in the form of water. The SHC pilot plant is unique in that it enables the operation of a continuous process during long campaigns on an industrially relevant scale.

Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is another central refinery process used to convert hydrocarbon fractions in high boiling point crude oils into more valuable products such as liquid fuels. The FCC test bed at RISE in Piteå is a  FCC MAT (Micro Activity Test Unit), which means that it can perform experiments according to ASTM-standard methods. It is specially made to allow simultaneous feeding of two immiscible liquid raw materials (fossil and bio-based oil). Current research projects are mostly focused on upgrading pyrolysis oil and HTL oil.