A Viewpoint on the Refinery of the Future: Catalyst and Process Challenges

Mohammed A Alabdullah,Alberto Rodriguez Gomez,Anissa Bendjeriou-Sedjerari,Ibrahim A Abba,Jullian Vittenet,Wei Xu,Jorge Gascon

doi:10.1021/acscatal.0c02209

Mohammed A Alabdullah, Alberto Rodriguez Gomez + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.0c02209

Copy DOI

Abstract

A Viewpoint on the Refinery of the Future: Catalyst and Process Challenges

Highlights

Light olefins and aromatics, the most valuable building blocks for the chemical industry, are produced mostly via Steam Cracking and as byproducts of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC).[2]. To fill their demand gap, different on-purpose technologies, such as propane dehydrogenation (PDH), olefin metathesis (MTS),[4] methanol-toolefins (MTO),[5] oxidative coupling of methane (OCM), or Fischer−Tropsch Synthesis (FT),[4,6] have gained a great deal of attention, with a large number of industrial plants based on these technologies being commissioned over the past decade along with an important expansion of the hydrocracking and steam cracking capacity worldwide.[7,8]
Catalysts combining amorphous silica−alumina (ASA) with optimized textural properties demonstrated better hydrogen efficiency and higher product yield compared to conventional ASA and aluminabased catalysts.[111]
Some of the innovative near to midterm technology tracks under its portfolio including Thermal Crude to Chemicals (TC2C) technology and Catalytic Crude to Chemicals (CC2C) technology have been significantly advanced in close collaboration with strategic engineering and technology partners (McDermot, CLG, TehcnipFMC, Axens) and are currently at or near commercial readiness. These technologies innovatively address the technical challenges posed by the impurities in the crude oil and the wide-boiling fractions by different combinations of pretreatment, separation and catalytic cracking to achieve chemicals conversion yields of 60−80% per barrel of crude processed

Summary

Introduction

Catalysts combining amorphous silica−alumina (ASA) with optimized textural properties demonstrated better hydrogen efficiency and higher product yield compared to conventional ASA and aluminabased catalysts.[111] Alternative formulations, including low acidity β-zeolite and noble metals (Pt/Pd), were developed for second-stage hydrocracking catalysts for the production of middle distillate from heavy VGO.[112] In the case of direct treatment of heavy oils, most reported catalysts are based on bimetallic systems, with the combination of Mo and Fe exhibiting the highest catalytic activity.[113,114] The challenge becomes more important for feedstocks with high N (>300 ppm) and S (>0.1 wt %) content.

Results

Conclusion