Avantium Catalysis performed a large project to support the catalyst selection with a series of testing runs to evaluate several cyclic-regen and semi-regen reforming catalysts with multiple feedstock’s for a major US oil refiner operating more than 10 refineries. This was a follow up project after the first very successful selection project, also for reforming catalysts.
Avantium Flowrence® 16-parallel reactors system with unmatched reactor-to-reactor repeatability and run-to-run reproducibility allowed to very finely discriminate multiple catalysts options. The discrimination capabilities of our micro-pilot plant provided extremely precise and repeatable C5+ yields, total aromatics and hydrogen-produced data as well as stability trends of the catalysts at constant RON output and complete PIONA breakdown with time on stream.
Additionally the high-throughput nature of the equipment combined with its low feedstock volume requirement allows to easily compare the numerous semi-regen and cyclic-regen catalysts in parallel at various octane targets and with duplication for statistically relevant results. For each type of catalysts, a specific test strategy was adopted using commercial plant conditions. The impact of the nature of the Naphtha feedstock was also carefully investigated.
We are pleased to be a trusted partner for independent refinery catalyst evaluations. Avantium is committed to providing customers meaningful results to enable fact-based decisions and ultimately increase their competitiveness and profitability.
Choosing the best catalyst is of crucial importance to the profitability of refineries, as it represents a great opportunity to increase refining margins.