Kuwait Petroleum Research and Technology invests in catalyst testing technology

German high throughput experimentation company, hte, has supplied a high throughput catalyst testing system for hydroprocessing applications to Kuwait Petroleum Research and Technology (KPR&T/Q8 Research), an affiliate of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). The test unit provided will be able to process atmospheric residue feedstocks. It supports KPR&T in establishing cost-effective catalyst research. The 16-fold reactor system was installed in 2018 in Rotterdam, Netherlands and is now delivering its first results.

KPC has the largest combined Atmospheric Residue DeSulphurisation (ARDS) capacity in the world, which, in turn, requires leading expertise in residue processing. KPR&T decided to use high throughput catalyst testing as it is a time-saving and cost-efficient approach for commercial catalyst testing. With hte’s proprietary technology, full-size commercial catalysts can be tested under commercially relevant conditions. These tests can be performed on real refinery feedstocks ranging from diesel, vacuum gas oil (VGO), and deasphalted oil (DAO) to atmospheric residue.