Zeolite Catalysis with a Focus on Downstream Refining Applications

2017 Spring Symposium

C.Y. Chen, Chevron Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Com­pa­ny, Rich­mond, CA

Abstract — Zeo­lites have been impor­tant cat­a­lysts for the refin­ing and petro­chem­i­cal indus­tries and oth­er appli­ca­tions. The use of organo-cation tem­plate mol­e­cules to pro­vide struc­ture direc­tion has giv­en rise to a num­ber of nov­el zeo­lites in recent years, lead­ing to break­throughs in zeo­lite syn­the­sis and pro­vid­ing an impe­tus in devel­op­ing new process chem­istry. As a con­se­quence, the under­stand­ing of zeo­lite struc­tures and the struc­ture-prop­er­ty rela­tion­ships has become not only of basic aca­d­e­m­ic inter­est but also one of the most crit­i­cal tasks in bring­ing the indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions of these mate­ri­als to suc­cess­ful fruition.

In this paper I will first present a brief overview of Chevron’s zeo­lite R&D. Then the empha­sis will be placed on zeo­lite catal­y­sis for down­stream refin­ing appli­ca­tions such as hydro­c­rack­ing, hydroi­so­mer­iza­tion and MTO (methanol to olefins). Here the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of zeo­lites via cat­alyt­ic test reac­tions and physisorp­tion plays an impor­tant role. The hydro­c­rack­ing and hydroi­so­mer­iza­tion of paraf­fins such as n-hexa­ne, n-decane and n-hexa­de­cane as well as MTO will be dis­cussed as exam­ples for the inves­ti­ga­tion of the cat­alyt­ic prop­er­ties of a series of zeo­lites (e.g., Y, mor­den­ite, fer­rierite, ZSM-5, ZSM-12, ZSM-22, ZSM-48, TNU-9, SSZ-25, SSZ-26, SSZ-32, SSZ-33, SSZ-56, SSZ-57, SSZ-75, SSZ-87 and SSZ-98) and some new exam­ples of shape selec­tiv­i­ties of zeo­lite catal­y­sis will be demon­strat­ed. Fur­ther­more, our stud­ies on the vapor phase physisorp­tion of a series of hydro­car­bon adsor­bates with vary­ing mol­e­cule sizes for a wide spec­trum of zeo­lite struc­tures will be report­ed. Cat­alyt­ic test reac­tions and vapor phase hydro­car­bon adsorp­tion togeth­er also pro­vide use­ful infor­ma­tion for the deter­mi­na­tion of zeo­lite struc­tures.

The author thanks Chevron Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Com­pa­ny for sup­port of zeo­lite R&D, espe­cial­ly S.I. Zones, R.J. Sax­ton and G.L. Scheuer­man.

Biog­ra­phy — C.Y. Chen is a senior staff sci­en­tist and tech­ni­cal team leader in the Catal­y­sis Tech­nol­o­gy Depart­ment of Chevron Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Com­pa­ny locat­ed in Rich­mond, Cal­i­for­nia. He is a zeo­lite sci­en­tist by train­ing and has been work­ing at Chevron for the past 22 years in zeo­lite research projects involv­ing syn­the­sis, mod­i­fi­ca­tion, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, catal­y­sis, adsorp­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion. He received his Diplom in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Karl­sruhe, Ger­many and Ph.D. in Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Old­en­burg, Ger­many with Prof. Jens Weitkamp. Then he was a post­doc at Vir­ginia Tech and Cal­tech with Prof. Mark Davis. He is also an adjunct pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Davis.