IRPC Americas ONLINE: Axens discusses the latest in octane enhancement/biofuels/renewable fuels production
Axens kicked off Hydrocarbon Processing’s IRPC Americas ONLINE virtual event on Monday with the Innovation Workshop. The company provided an overview of technical processes for octane enhancement, biofuels production and the digital process unit. The pre-conference workshop started with an introduction by Olivier Le Coz, Sales Director Americas-Process Licensing, Axens North America, on the company’s growth over the past several years and their operations under three commercial brands—Axens Solutions, Heurtey Petrochem Solutions and Axens Horizon. “Axens is no longer just a technology supplier,” said Mr. Le Coz, “we are a provider of fully integrated solutions of the entire project lifecycle.” These offerings include process technology licensing, catalysts and adsorbents, equipment and modules, process furnaces, software, training, consulting and more.
Mr. Le Coz was followed by Kate DeSalvo, Technical Service Engineer; Richa Sarkar, Technologist; and Mukun Yallambalse, Business Development Manager, all with Axens North America. They spoke about meeting increased octane demand via a smart investment approach. The presentation started with an overview of global oil and refined products demand to 2025. The Asia-Pacific region will witness the largest increase in global oil demand. Regarding refined products demand, naphtha will have the largest growth to the mid-2020s.
The oil demand overview was followed by a detailed examination of octane demand drivers, which is being led by CAFE standards, as well as traditional—reforming, isomerization, alkylation, etc.—and non-traditional routes to increasing octane in gasoline. Additional comments were made on a traditional route to octane enhancement through Axens’ Dimersol-G process, which is used to dimerize light olefins from C3 streams to make high-octane gasoline. Non-traditional process technologies noted were oligermerization; Axens licenses Selectopol, Polynaphtha, PolyFuel and FlexEne. The speakers also noted their bio-based portfolio of process technologies, specifically Futurol and Bio Tcat.
The biofuels discussion continued with David Schwalje’s, Business Development Manager, presentation “The future of renewable fuel and chemicals investment: Sustainable air fuel and 2G feedstock conversion.” Mr. Schwalje detailed Axens’ Vegan technology, which produces renewable diesel and jet fuel through hydrotreatment of a wide range of lipids (e.g., fats and vegetable oils). He also discussed the 2G (solid biomas such as wood chips, agricultural waste, etc.) route to renewable fuels via several Axens processes—Bio Tfuel (gasification and Fischer Tropsch), Bio TCat (catalytic pyrolysis) and Futurol (enzymatic conversion).
Axens’ final session focused on the digital process unit—all the building blocks that go into monitoring and optimizing unit operations—and on dynamic simulation and how it relates to training, engineering and controls systems optimization.
Hydrocarbon Processing’s IRPC Americas ONLINE, which features the latest in refining and petrochemical processing technologies, runs through Wednesday. The virtual event is free to attend. Visit www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com/Events to register.
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