Developing Petrochemicals in Hydrocarbon Rich Countries

This book will serve both the Industry and Academia. I had the experience of serving as a Petrochemical Advisor in several Hydrocarbon Rich Countries. From those experiences the idea has borne to write this book. Many other contributors have offered indeed their outstanding opinions of recent protagonists of the petrochemical technology. The Prologue has been written by Prof. Drioli, an expert in catalytic membranes. Prof. Trifirò and Prof. Cavani have authored the part relevant to the technology of catalytic oxidation. Prof. Guido Busca, Genoa University has presented the catalyst role in the future of the petrochemical developments. Contributions renowned catalyst producers such as Axens, SUD-Chemie, Synetix and Topsoe have bridged the market knowledge of the Authors to the new developments of catalysts for new products and raw materials. In the First Part, catalysts are classified by applications, characteristics and properties: first metal-based catalysts and then the more complex catalytic systems for paraffin oxidation are reviewed. In the Second Part, petrochemical products are briefly reviewed signaling the most recent and/or possible future developments. The production of high added value compounds must be preferred to the massive production of low-value commodities. Premium products can be obtained by lengthening the chemical chain value of cracking by-products or by recovering double-triple bond compounds. These are the modern petrochemical trends. The shifting olefins to paraffins as raw material for the major petrochemical derivatives is a market trend. Methane to olefins, propane to propylene, butane to butadiene and butanes are examples of this trend. In the Third Part, a few chapters deal with the laboratory reactors and related operations. These chapters are useful for the ion of bench-scale equipment for catalyst formulation and testing with a particular emphasis on the considerations leading to the most appropriate construction materials. The ionion of a proper reactor for developing and testing catalysts is becoming more and more an art in the hands of a few specialized suppliers. The vision is clear: the petrochemical world is at its buoyant turning-around; and we are ready to it. This is the book I had the desire to write since long. With many years of my work in the Petrochemical Industry, the subjects of Kinetics and Catalysis - along with the fundamentals of transport phenomena associated with heat and mass transfer - have always been my favourite disciplines. This rather unusual vocation, influencing my way of looking at the facts of life, has given me the valuable chance to get in touch with and establish long relationships with gifted and brilliant men across the world. So, little by little - more for the merit of these great professionals than my own – I accrued a certain knowledge in these fields by simply compiling papers, information, reports, catalogues, and so forth. All this material was used in the preparation of a draft on which this book was successively developed. The structure of the book spreads very much on the way the idea of writing it was set forth and progressively developed. Chapter 1 embodies the general objectives I have expressed in several papers and ultimately in a conference I held at Naples University early 2007 bearing the message that - based on catalytic technologies - high added value chemical products were to be developed. Based on these ideas, I prepared the draft of a number of Chapters, with absolute modesty and without any pretence of inventing anything new, aimed only at giving a sort of guideline to experts, scientists and researchers volunteering to join me in this effort. Thus, the sequence of Metals, Pd, Cu/Zn, VOP, Zr, Pt, P, Ni-based catalytic systems has originated more on the basis of some industrial practical good sense than on a theoretical-scientific or market-related justifiable approach. The basic definitions and the fundamental nomenclature needed when dealing with catalyst technology could not be really neglected. With the final objective of the present research being the fundamental Apparatus and Equipment necessary to produce catalysts on laboratory scale, a few of the Chapters are completely dedicated to the description of Laboratory Reactors and Bench-Scale Equipment for use in catalyst production. When the first version of this book was ready, I circulated it among University Professors and Experts in the field for their comments, suggestions, revisions and occasionally contributions. Receiving positive reactions, I was encouraged to complete the work seeking for help and assistance to some of the major international catalyst producers. I received positive responses the major international catalyst manufacturers such as: Axens of IFP, Haldor Topsoe, Synetix of ICI (currently Johnson Matthew Catalysts) and SUD-Chemie who accepted to enrich the book with their experience and competence. Little by little, I had the idea of formulating a sort of unifying strategy or general criteria for Hydrocarbon Rich Countries to develop fundamental research activities on petrochemical catalysts. A systematic evaluation approach was followed to focus these objectives for countries where hydrocarbons are abundant and cheap along with large and modern research and production facilities, a potentially high internal demand and, last but not least, good marketing and export capabilities. These trends and objectives are summarized in Chapter 1. Most of the Chapters had already been written or were under preparation by other Authors. This is why I found myself obliged to cover most of the chapters not planned at the beginning. To partially remedy the situation, I decided to circulate the later-prepared papers among the other Authors who were in a better position than I to write on a certain specific matter: From all of them I received answers, remarkable contributions and significant comments. The goal of this book is therefore to demonstrate our synergetic effort to scan out and rationalize a few aggregated strategic objectives for the development of petrochemical Industry in hydrocarbon rich countries but the ultimate wish of the Author is that the book prove itself useful to the new generation of students stimulating and creating in them a vocational interest towards catalyst RD activities.M.P.