IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN), a major research and training player in the fields of energy, transport and the environment, commissioned Avantium as their preferred choice for the evaluation and comparison of multiple catalyst systems for Mild Hydrocracking. The feeds were hydrotreated blends of VGO and Heavy Coker Gas Oil supplied by a refinery.
Avantium provides refinery catalyst testing services for high throughput catalysis R&D. By the use of its proprietary Flowrence® technology, Avantium has supported catalysts vendors on fast-track development of hydroprocessing catalysts for some years now. The tools, methods and procedures applied to assure an accurate comparison of the catalysts performances as it can be verified by the outstanding repeatability and reproducibility of the experiments.
Benoit Celse, Mild HCK Project Leader of IFPEN, says: “The new Avantium pilot plant with new improvements (Active Liquid Distribution to improve accuracy) performed very well even with the very difficult feedstock. The results showed improved mass balances, the repeatability and the accuracy were good. These results are consistent with the results obtained on the classical pilot plant (with Catalyst Volume > 50 cc). This kind of tool is very useful in order to select the best catalysts in Mild HCK even with refractory feedstock”.
Avantium’s Flowrence® 16-reactors system enabled the parallel testing of catalysts under the exact same conditions, which greatly improves data quality. The methods applied and the resulting high data quality with a deviation of less than 1.5°C in net conversion 370°C+ between duplicate catalysts (and less than 0.5wt% difference in middle distillate yields (at iso conversion)), and 1°C in HDS/HDN has been independently verified by IFPEN.
The catalysts were tested across a broad range of conditions (temperatures, LHSV) and the results obtained (Net conversion, yields and Sulfur/Nitrogen content) matched with the pilot plant performance of IFPEN.
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