Air Products is building a hydrogen lab in Pennsylvania designed to help oil rerefiners optimize their hydrotreatment processes. The lab is scheduled to be operational in the third quarter of 2015.
Were hoping we can then show them ways to save some money and perhaps make a better quality base oil, Tim Lebrecht, Air Products lead engineer for refinery applications, told Lube Report.
Lebrecht said a number of rerefiners use hydrogen produced by systems supplied by Air Products, which is based in Allentown, Pa. The company supplies hydrogen from a variety of production processes, including steam methane reforming and gasification of various feedstocks.
The new hydrotreatment unit was designed to test hydrogenation of various feedstocks over continuous flow, fixed-bed catalytic reactors. The company will use the hydrotreatment unit to evaluate for customers the impact of feed quality, catalysts and other operating parameters on product quality, throughput and process economics.
He explained that some customers may perform hydrotreating under process conditions which arent ideal and that may cause inefficiencies – both in the base oil yield and in the catalyst lifetime. If we are able to do a better type of hydrotreatment, the lifetime of the catalyst should be extended, which should help decrease downtime and increase throughput, Lebrecht said.
Air Products can replicate catalysts or do trials of different catalysts to show differences with different feedstocks and different process conditions, he said. Our overall objective is, how do we help our customers become more efficient in what they do, to make a better quality oil, and to help them choose the best catalyst for their feedstock and choose the best process conditions for that particular feedstock? he stated. If it helps our customers, it helps us sell more hydrogen. So its in the win-win category.
Vipul Dholakia, senior applications engineer at Air Products, said in a news release that if hydrotreatment is not carried out under optimal conditions, an inferior quality of base oil is produced that has to be either reprocessed or sold at a discounted price. The testing capability of the new hydrogen lab, combined with our knowledge and experience as a hydrogenation reaction and gas applications leader, will enable us to help oil recyclers increase profitability by improving their product quality and processing efficiency, Dholakia said.