Preface

Abstract

Since 1987, the Petroleum Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has sponsored at three year intervals an international symposium on fluid cracking catalysts (FCCs) technology. Fluid Catalytic Cracking VI: Preparation and Characterization of Catalysts collects the recent progress of this technology as reported in the 21 papers presented during the 226 th National Meeting of the ACS in New York, September 7–11, 2003. The book describes in detail the use of density functional theory (DFT) methods to extract pore volume (PV) and surface area (SA) distribution data from nitrogen sorption isotherms of commercially available FCCs. Results from these DFT procedures indicate that traditional methods (such as the Langmuir and BET equation) currently in use can grossly underestimate SA and PV values in FCCs. The book also focuses on the use of modern spectroscopic techniques for the generation of detailed structural analysis required for the advancement of the science of FCC design. The use and importance of solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), microcalorimetry, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) in the study of FCCs are described. The book also describes applied aspects of cracking operations, on-line feedstock characterization, and feedstock effects on FCC performance.