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Innovative catalyst solutions and technical know-how can enhance profitability and create a sustainable future
K etjen, a wholly owned subsidiary of Albemarle Corporation, continues a legacy as an industry leader for fluid catalytic cracking solutions (FCC), clean fuels solutions (CFS) and hydroprocessing catalysts (HPC), and performance catalyst solutions (PCS). Albemarle’s operations team will remain in place after Ketjen’s launch in January 2023, focusing on increasing performance with tai - lored, advanced catalyst solutions to complex challenges in alignment with the partners and sectors we serve. By applying our in-depth knowledge of catalysts to cus- tomer operations and nurturing our subject matter expertise, we can strategically advise the refining industry with modern thinking on today’s opportunities and the future’s challenges. We prioritise strong industry engagement and partnerships. This helps us meet growing demands for clean energy with resources devoted toward designing the solutions to carry the industry forward for greater profitability today and a seamless energy transition to a sustainable world tomorrow. Clean fuels solutions – Quasar catalyst platform Quasar ™ is the first major innovation under the Ketjen brand name. A new hydroprocessing catalyst platform, it is a diverse line of high-performance solutions for distillate hydrotreat - ing, FCC pretreat, and hydrocracking pretreat units. History Stars ® catalyst, developed in cooperation with our joint venture partner Nippon Ketjen, was the first Type II cata - lyst in the hydroprocessing catalyst industry. With our lat- est launch, along with Nippon Ketjen, we have again used high-throughput catalyst testing, computational chemis - try, machine learning, and state-of-the-art techniques for
catalyst and feedstocks characterisation. This has allowed us to significantly increase the experimentation hit rates, lead - ing to significant step increases in catalyst performance for a broad range of applications. Pulsar ® was the first catalyst platform developed with this approach. It features very high dispersion and narrow control of the active phase morphology. This results in supe - rior activity and stability in middle distillates hydrotreating applications, even with challenging feedstock and very low hydrogen availability. Quasar benefits Quasar technology applies high-throughput experimenta - tion and characterisation with machine learning and com - putational chemistry (see Figure 1 ). Advances in these methods have allowed for a profound understanding of the relationships between the catalyst preparation, the proper - ties of the metal active phase, and the catalyst performance in medium-to-high- and high-pressure hydrotreating applications. For Quasar, its active phase has been designed to provide high hydrodesulphurisation (HDS) activity and volume swell in supported NiMo catalysts by boosting specifically the hydrodehitrogenation (HDN) and hydrogenation functional - ities. This has been obtained by optimising the MoS2 metals slabs morphology and decoration by the metal promoters and by tuning their interaction with the alumina support (see Figure 2 ). In this way, Quasar provides new high-performance solu - tions for distillates, FCC pretreat, and hydrocracking pretreat applications and is currently being commercialised for NiMo
catalyst applications.
Campaign A Campaign B Campaign C
HDN activity
HDS activity (%)
Figure 1 Progress of Quasar development showing performance improvements in campaigns A-C
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