Development of high performance catalyst for heavy oil upgrading

An overview of a research program being pursued at the Research Institute of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals aimed at development of suitable catalysts for hydrocracking of the VGO from Arabian Light crude to obtain higher quality distillate products was presented. The newly developed high-performance hydroprocessing catalysts were based on amorphous silica alumina and modified zeolites. Some of the formulations of developed catalysts showed high performance in terms of HDS and cracking activities. These catalysts were being further developed, comprehensively characterized, and thoroughly evaluated to come up with a tailor-made catalyst formulation for hydrocracking of heavy fractions of Arabian Light crude oil. The in-house developed clay-based catalysts possessed equivalent HDS and cracking activities compared to those of the commercial reference catalyst. However, saturates content in the product was lower, which shows the need for improvement in hydrogenation activity.