Desulfurization of Crude Oil by Laboratory Developed Multipumping Flow Injection Analysis System with Optimization by Response Surface Methodology

Sour crude oil is the crude oil that contains a high level of sulfur impurity. It can be toxic and corrosive. Before this lower-quality crude can be processed into other crude oil derivatives, the sulfur content must be reduced, raising the processing cost. A homemade semi-automated multipumping flow analysis system was constructed, consisting of several parts available on the local markets and at low economic costs to decrease the sulfur content of crude oil samples collected. The central composite design (CCD) and response surface methodology (RSM) have been used for modeling and optimization. The effects of the operational parameters, including polar and nonpolar solvent types, solvent flow rates (10–40 ml/min), mixing coil lengths (120–200 min), temperature (30–60 °C), and solvent entry time to the system (0–60 sec) were studied. Experimental and theoretical applications were made to determine the optimal sulfur content, which came out to be 1.438 and 1.395 wt.%, respectively. This system evaluated the effectiveness of the sulfur removal content for actual heavy crude oil by experimentally and theoretically to be 65.73 and 66.75% respectively. The semi-automated system was applied successfully to reduce the sulfur content in a highly sensitive and accurate way.