PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15958639
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-04
Publication Date: 2018-08
Patent Classification: ["208", "309000"]

Abstract:
An apparatus and process is provided for improved asphaltene separation from heavy hydrocarbon or bitumen with low process complexity through mass transfer using solvent and counter-current flows, with three sections: an upper DAO/solid-asphaltene separation zone, a middle solvent mixing and segregation zone, and a bottom clarification zone. Solvent mixed with heavy hydrocarbon forms a process feed introduced to the process vessel's upper zone and exposed to counter-current solvent removing DAO from solid asphaltene particles in the feed, the particles fall through the middle zone and are mixed with introduced solvent, which introduced solvent segregates DAO-rich solution in the upper zone (for extraction from that zone) from solvent-rich mixtures in the middle mixing and lower clarification zones. Solvent flows and precipitate movement are controlled to optimize mass transfer in process, resulting in high DAO recovery and dry, solid asphaltene product.

Claim (Index 17):
An improved solid asphaltene separator apparatus comprising:\n a. An upper section which comprises\n i. Means to receive a mixture of target feedstock and a solvent; \n ii. Means to remove DAO rich DAO/solvent mixture; \n iii. Means to remove solid asphaltene suspension; and \n b. A middle section\n i. Operatively connected with the upper and lower section with \n ii. Means to receive fresh solvent for\n 1. Mixing to provide additional mass transfer in the middle section; \n 2. Providing sufficient solvent flow to the upper section to provide additional mass transfer, and prevent the downward flow of DAO while permitting the downward flow of materials comprised essentially of solid asphaltene precipitate; \n 3. Some downward flow of solvent; and \n \n c. A lower section\n i. Operatively connected with the middle section to receive downward flows of solvent introduced in the middle section and to receive downward flow of solid asphaltene precipitate from the upper section through the middle section and into the lower section with:\n 1. Means to receive fresh solvent at or near the bottom of the lower section with solvent flow rates sufficient to be counter-current to downward flow of the materials from the upper section; and \n 2. Means to remove the solid asphaltenes from the downward flowing materials together with some solvent.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 23.0
- Percentile: 91.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.96154
- Patent Class: 208.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14188547', '13351767', '14921082', '13250935', '15276224']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7554961849028685
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.6366542121945614
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7436119876320378
- Mean Citation Score: 337.7187
- Max Citation Score: 488.5816
- Similarity Product: 391.03748262987136

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test