Total Catalyst Management

Refiners are increasingly turning to STARS® catalyst, with their highly engineered Type II active sites, to help meet exacting product specifications.

Conventional regeneration of spent STARS catalyst can lead to activity decline. Albemarle and its joint-venture partner Nippon Ketjen Co. Ltd have developed REACT™ technology, which helps refiners to maximize the economic life cycles of their hydroprocessing catalyst and thereby reduce catalyst cost and the environmental impact of catalyst disposal.

REACT technology redistributes the metals and reconfigures the formation of the original Type II active sites. The treatment, when compared with conventional catalyst regeneration, results in a 20-60% activity boost, depending on the application area. This gives many grades of STARS catalyst over 90% of their initial activity. REACT can be used with the complete STARS catalyst portfolio.

Proven Activity Improvement

REACT™ has been successfully used to reactivate 32,000 MT of STARS catalysts since 2003. Albemarle and Nippon Ketjen have responded to market demands for REACT catalyst products and services by certifying Eurecat as REACT technology provider at multiple plants worldwide. Albemarle works closely with its licensees to help optimize the REACT treatment on mixed beds and to perform laboratory REACT treatments on difficult samples with, for example, excessive carbon or other contaminants.

Multiple Reactivations

STARS catalyst can undergo multiple reactivations without activity loss, although the mechanical aspects of the treatment may result in some reduction in run length due to the pressure build up. For example, Albemarle's partner Eurecat has demonstrated that catalyst Ketjenfine® (KF) 757 can be successfully reactivated up to four times while retaining more than 90% of the fresh catalyst's activity.