Role of R&D in Developing Oil Industry Catalysts

1. IN THE NAME OF GOD Role of R&D in Developing Oil Industry Catalysts Mehdi Rashidzadeh First International Catalyst Conference Tehran-IRAN 9 June 2014

2. Outline: Drivers of Catalysis for Social development Market and uses of catalyst The long journey of an idea Catalyst Importance for Iran Examples of success Driven by R&D Concluding Remarks

3.  History RIPI Overview • Research Institute of Petroleum Industry: • Founded in 1959 • Affiliated to National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) • Over 700 permanent employees (about 2000 including service contract staff) • Nation's Largest research institute

4. Catalyst Preparation • Catalytic Reaction Engineering • Characterization and Evaluation of Catalysts • Development of carbon and Nanotechnology

5. Why R&D Important on catalyst? • More than 20% of GDP from products made using catalysts • > 90% of petro refining and petrochemicals processes use catalysts • > 95% of pollution control technologies • Catalysts has a strategic importance for the country economy and …

6. Drivers of Catalysis for Social development Catalysis has a tremendous impact on the human activities as concerns economic development, environment preservation and, more broadly, societal progress. >90% of all molecules of transportation fuels >80% of all chemical products The development and scale-up of processes are, by definition, application oriented. Industrial catalysis targeted to make in better processes resulting in : Are manufactured with catalysis Energy efficiency Economic efficiency Development of Chemical Processes Environmental efficiency Feedstock efficiency 6

7. Market and uses of catalyst Catalytic processes require of a very particular industry for catalyst manufacture. About 100 companies worldwide, <20 are the major ones, produce catalysts on their own technologies or as toll manufacturers. > $ 21000 million in 2011 catalysts sales > $ 7,500 billion yearly induced market of manufactured goods. Oil Refining (29 %) Development of Chemical Processes Chemical Processing (32%) Including polymers & fine chemicals Environmental Impact Control (39 %) Catalyst sales per market sector 7

8. Role of Catalysis in Oil Refining Over 80 million barrel of crude Oil are processed daily worldwide in >700 refineries. The fundamental drivers determining the refinery mission are : • Ensure the energetic security, • Reduce the environmental impact: • Ensure Operation economics creating value for shareholders. A refinery is an integrated sequence of technologies able to • Separate various hydrocarbon fractions, • transform them in molecules suitable for the final use, and remove unwanted impurities. “ Any Part “ of crude oil must be utilized with environmentally friendly technologies. Reaction technologies for petroleum refining consist almost entirely of catalytic processes designed to modify the components of the fractions in four ways : • Breaking big molecules in smaller ones (cracking) • Combining small molecules in larger ones (condensations) • Rearranging “Part” of molecules for getting appropriate “structures” (isomerization) • Breaking carbon-heteroatom bonds (S, N, O, Me) 8

9. Global Catalyst Market (2011) ($ 21 B) Refining Catalyst Market (2011) ($ 6.3 B)

10. Global Consumption of synthetic zeolites (volume basis) (~2 MT/year)

11. Idea to Commercialization needs: • Qualified staff, experienced in different fields of sciences, Engineering and Technology. • High –tech equipments for physico- chemical characterization and testing the catalytic performance. • Pilot facilities for catalysts production and testing (Scaling-up) • Innovative activity (Patent and legal services) and good commercial partners.

12. Creativity and Innovativeness An innovative process begins with an idea that is generated in the somebody’s mind. Individual Creativity is the engine of ideas generation. Creativity: Seeing What everyone else has seen And Thinking what no one else has thought (Albert Szent-Gyorgi) Innovativeness implies an application of discoveries. It is always true that “necessity is mother of invention” 12

13. The long journey of an idea Human progress has been always based on creativity and innovativeness that reflects the dualsim Science-Technology, two different but strongly connected cultural Worlds. Scale-Up is the conjunction between creativity and innovativeness. Scale up transform the initial idea into innovation, through a long (and dangerous) journey. And there are only few ideas that will cover the entire way ! Even in a continuum, the R&D activities, can be grouped into two basic stages: • the “explorative and definition phase”, already oriented, but still looking for a general definition of the process, and • the “intensive and development phase”, strictly finalized to achievement of The complete technology know-how. Explorative and definition phase discovery idea Invention Definition Check Intensive & development phase Pre-development Development Basic design Optimization Risk analysis Commercialization Front end design Engineering Construction Start-up Realization 13

14. The end of the journey As a consequence R&D projects undergo very considerable “attrition”, and the majority of explorative projects are ended. About 1 to 3% of ideas for a new process at the early research stage reaches commercialization. Project at the development stage have a probability of about 10 to 25%, and at the pilot plant stage of 40 to 60%. The success rate for marginal modifications of existing technologies will be higher than that of completely new processes. Projects innovation 15

15. Impact of high-throughput techniques in the development and launching of a new product

16. University Fundamental and basic research Applied research Product Development Industry More “R” than “D” in Developing Countries 17

17. R&D and its link with businesses 3. Exploratory research. This helps to develop understanding of technology that the business is using or may use R&D for existing businesses. This will ensure the business is able to exploit all opportunities available to it Drive new businesses. Business opportunities will continually arise. R&D will ensure that these can be exploited 18

18. € Sales Commercialization investment R&D investment Cash flow Time Generic technologies Science base Proprietary technologies Production scale-up Market penetration 19

19. Multidisciplinarity and integration Catalysis and catalytic processes development involve skills coming from many complementary, independent disciplines. Industry-Academia collaborations enlarge the cultural basis of the projects, and educate industrial researchers to apply new scientific concepts in their “real-world” and academic researchers to introduce “real problems” in their world. Catalysis needs integration and “bridging the gaps”: • between catalyst preparation and performances, • between model catalyst and working catalyst, • between laboratory and industrial conditions, • between reactor engineering and catalyst formulation, • between electronic structure calculations at molecular level and experimental results, and not be forgotten, between business and science 20

20. Catalyst Importance for Iran • Geopolitical Context -Iran has huge oil and gas reserves -During the coming decades oil will still be main source of energy. - Some political issues (sanctions) • Development in refining and petrochemicals - There are 9 oil refineries throughout the country -7 new refinery are under construction (they would be operational up to 2025) - increasing the capacity of old refineries - investment on new petrochemical complexes. • high consumption (by considering the developing plants in refining and petrochemical industry it would be more than 5000 ton/ year).

21. Priorities for some catalysts

22. Catalysis and Nanotechnology Research Division Developed Know-how

23. Examples of success Driven by R&D • Naphtha Hydrotreating catalyst • Naphtha Reforming catalyst • Zeolites: 3A & 4A

24. Naphtha Hydrodesulfurization • Physical and chemical Specification of the Co-Mo/Al2O3 catalyst

25. . • Pilot Plant Unit for testing the catalyst

26. . Result of the Catalyst Activity Test • Feed: Naphtha with 1200 ppm S (Total Sulfur) • H2/Oil 175 Nlit/lit • Pressure 15 bar • LHSV 4.2 hr-1

27. Catalytic Reforming Process • Catalytic reforming of naphtha constitute a very important source of products having high octane numbers which are key components in the production of gasoline. • Catalytic reforming is the process of transforming hydrocarbons with low octane numbers to aromatics and iso-paraffins which have high octane numbers.

28. Physical and Chemical Specification of Pt-Re/Al2O3 catalyst

29. . Results of catalyst activity test • Reaction condition , T:515 °C P:10bar LHSV:2h-1 H2/oil:5Nli/li

30. Results of catalyst activity test Synthesized catalyst in nano scale Commercial catalystSynthesized catalyst by conventional method

31. Zeolites: 3A & 4A Applications: • Catalysis • Gas separation • Ion exchange • Detergents

32. Process Description All ingredients and equipments used are from national sources

33. Product Specification

34. SEM micrograph synthesized zeolite 4A powder Commercial Novelty…

35. Available Facilities for: • Catalyst preparation (Lab & Pilot scale) • Catalyst evaluation • Industrial production

36. Catalyst preparation

37. Catalyst preparation

38. Catalyst Evaluation Pilot Plants

39. Catalyst Evaluation Pilot Plants • catalysts performance are evaluated at bench and pilot scale. Major units in this section are for the following processes: • Steam Reforming • Hydrocracking • Hydrotreating(Naphtha, Kerosene, Gasoil) • Low temperature shift conversion (LTSC) • High temperature shift conversion (HTSC) • S-Absorptions • Catalytic reforming • Isomerization

40. *Facilities for Industrial Production *Used by Permission PP&C.

41.  Nanotechnology Research NEW TECHNOLOGIES Pilot Plant Commercial Scale Bench Scale Industrial Plant Research Patenting Lab Test 42

42. Concluding Remarks • During the coming decades, oil will still be the main source of energy and so it is necessary to develop the better catalysts for catalytic processes. • Industrial catalyst producing is of strategic importance for any developing country and without dubte it belongs to the category of the so-called "high-tech" industries. • It should be emphasized that without intensive research and development activities it is impossible to reach and maintain of catalyst production. • Industry should play the leading role, which is especially important. It has the provider of founding for R&D teams. • The companies which produce catalyst, have to support big research teams and extensive multimillion R&D programs. • Catalyst developers must be support the industry and give them suitable guarantees and technical services.

43. Thanks For Your AttentioN • DMD-DMC plant (Kharg) 44