**1. Introduction**

Petroleum refineries require production of transportation fuels by decomposition of petroleum residual oil. The residual oil has low H/C ratio, high viscosity, and impurities, such as sulfur, vanadium, and nickel. Hence, decomposition of the residual oil is not easy.

The conventional process to convert heavy oil, such as petroleum residual oil, to light hydrocarbons was coking, visbreaking, residue fluidized catalytic cracking (RFCC), and hydrocracking

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

[1, 2]. Heavy oil was decomposed with Ni-Mo or Co-Mo catalysts to produce light hydrocarbons with less coke under high hydrogen pressure in the hydrocracking process. The hydrocracking is a useful technique to produce light hydrocarbons, which has high H/C ratio, although hydrogen is expensive.

The crystalline construction of the catalyst was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD, M03XHF22, Mac Science Co. Ltd.). **Figure 2** showed the XRD patterns of the catalyst and

catalyst are broader compared to the reagent iron oxide, indicating that the domain size of

O3

lattice was small. The catalyst containing Zr and Al showed smaller domain size

, first grade, Wako Pure Chemical Industries, Ltd.) [9]. The pat-

O3

catalyst without Al, and the small domain size positively

. Absence of peaks corresponding to ZrO<sup>2</sup>

Iron Oxide-Based Catalyst for Catalytic Cracking of Heavy Oil

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72719

matrix [7]. The peaks of the

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regent iron (III) oxide (*α*-Fe<sup>2</sup>

and Al2

the *α*-Fe<sup>2</sup>

than the ZrO<sup>2</sup>

O3

**Figure 1.** SEM image of *α*-Fe<sup>2</sup>

**Figure 2.** XRD patterns of *α*-Fe<sup>2</sup>

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O<sup>3</sup> indicates high dispersion of Al and Zr in the *α*-Fe<sup>2</sup>

O3

terns of the catalyst corresponded to that of *α*-Fe<sup>2</sup>


O3

O3

catalyst containing Zr and Al.

catalyst containing Zr and Al and regent *α*-Fe<sup>2</sup>

O3

(reproduced from elsewhere [9]).

affected the catalyst durability [7, 8].

Steam can be an alternative hydrogen source for conversion of heavy oil to light hydrocarbons with catalysts. This technique requires the following catalyst properties: (i) a high ability to decompose heavy oil, (ii) stable activity under high steam temperature, and (iii) resistance to deposition of coke, sulfur, and metals. Iron oxide is not expensive and can be a candidate the catalyst to decompose heavy oil in a steam atmosphere.

This chapter describes an iron oxide-based catalyst for decomposition of heavy oil to produce light hydrocarbons. Properties of the catalyst and catalyst activity to decompose residual oil and desulfurization in a steam atmosphere are discussed.
