A trap for silicon

Patent number: 2742031

Authors: Lyudmila Krasilnikova, Alexey Yusovsky, Lyudmila Gulyaeva, Olga Shmelkova, Natalia Vinogradova, Georgy Bitiev, Pavel Nikulshin, Roman Filatov

Patent owner: Rosneft Oil Company

Hydrocarbon raw material is purified and prepared for further production in two stages. Silicon is used extensively in the former. For example, it is used in coking or visbreaking (viscosity reduction).

However, at the second stage, silicon turns from a useful additive into a “killer of catalysts”. Therefore, it reduces the efficiency of production of hydrocarbons suitable for final production of petrochemical products (fuels, oils, etc.). Hence, there is a huge demand for catalysts that, when recycled, reduce the silicon content remaining after the first stage to a minimum.

To solve this problem, Russian chemists proposed to use a new type of catalyst based on aluminum hydroxide treated with a mixture of low-molecular organic acids and starch. Furthermore, the sorption capacity (the quantity of substance capable of absorbing a sorbent per unit of its mass) of the new catalyst increases by 5-6 times.

The new catalyst also has much higher mechanical strength and other textural characteristics, which reduces the cost of its production and reduces the amount of catalyst required to obtain clean raw materials used in production.