Synergistic Hydrogen-Donating Ability of Petroleum Distillates and Hydrogen During Noncatalytic Thermal Processing

Anthracene (ANT) was used as a chemical probe to determine the hydrogen donating ability (HDA) of H-2, Venezuela distillates, and the mixture of the two (H-2+ distillates) at a range of temperatures, and the synergistic HDA between H-2 and distillates was measured to analyze the reaction path and activation possibilities of hydrogen. Results show that all of the HDAs determined increase as the temperature increases. The HDA of H-2 is much higher than that of the distillates at the same conditions. Moreover, the HDA of the H-2+ distillates mixture is higher than the summation of the corresponding HDAs of the hydrogen and distillates separately. The additional activity may be caused by synergistic effects between the H-2 and oil. The synergy promotes the activation of hydrogen molecules presented as some particular characteristics of the oils, such as the impact of active radicals from the oils, the utilization of a "hydrogen shuttle" from the oil fractions, and possibly activation capacity of hydrogen sulfide.