Porocel - Porocel - Catalyst Activity Testing

CATALYST ACTIVITY TESTING

To reduce fresh catalyst acquisition costs, refiners strive to reuse catalyst whenever possible. While catalyst regeneration and reactivation saves money, it is important to know whether or not the regenerated catalyst will meet the refiner’s processing objectives and cycle length requirements.

Typically, refiners rely on regeneration acceptance criteria to make this assessment- focusing only on physical and chemical properties. While these guidelines are valuable, additional catalyst activity testing can be extremely useful both before and after industrial regeneration or reactivation. Activity testing also helps refiners assess the quality and performance of resale catalyst before they make the purchase.

In 2009, Porocel acquired a catalyst activity testing laboratory in Singapore, enabling us to provide this valuable service to the refining industry. This capability is a perfect complement to our global regeneration, reactivation, and catalyst resale businesses.

The new lab is a hydrotreating pilot plant (Xytel Corporation) consisting of two independent reactor trains. Each train consists of two paired, fixed bed reactors in a fluidized sand bath. We conduct activity testing under well-defined conditions (i.e., temperature, pressure, liquid hourly space velocity, and hydrogen-to-feed ratio) and use standard straight-run gasoil. Standard procedures are followed for catalyst loading, pre-sulfurization and activity testing. We analyze the liquid products for nitrogen and sulfur content in the <10ppm range using a chemi-luminescence analyzer (Antec9000NS). Then we compare the desulfurization activity of the sample catalyst to a fresh reference catalyst under the same conditions. The test results are reported as relative volume activity (RVA), relative weight activity (RWA), or the temperature needed to achieve a desired sulfur level (usually 10ppm) in the liquid product. This data can be invaluable in helping the refiner to make the right catalyst choice.

Catalyst selection is often a challenging process. While using regenerated catalyst can be an excellent and economical way to achieve desired performance, uncertainty about the catalyst’s activity may result in an undesirable level of risk. With catalyst activity testing, Porocel eliminates the guesswork by defining catalyst activity before refiners make an investment.