Infoday: Catalysis and Unconventional Fossil Carbon Sources

November 24, 2010

DECHEMA-Haus, Frankfurt am Main

Invitation

With conventional high quality crude oil depleting within the next decades, the focus for converting fossil resources shifts from using crude oil to unconventional fossil carbon sources. This will be accompanied by shifting from conventional refining to the dedicated conversion of these more challenging feedstocks.

With the notable exception of methane clathrate, all these resources are very rich in carbon and contain a sizable concentration of metals, sulfur and nitrogen. The two most prominent substitutes for crude oil are oil shale and oil or tar sands. Both occur in large deposits totaling up to 3.3 trillion barrels crude oil equivalents for oil shale and 3.6 trillion for oil sands. Being quite different in nature, both share the challenge that the hydrocarbons contain also a large concentration of mineral components that have to be physically separated before the carbon resource can be chemically processed. For a successful and environmentally sustainable utilization, the high carbon content of these resources will require new challenging techniques for hydrogen addition or carbon rejection with catalysis being the core technology. The infoday will highlight the challenges and limitations of these areas.

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Frankfurt am Main.

Programme

13:00     Registration

14:00     Welcome and introduction
                R. Diercks, BASF SE, Ludwigshafen

Chairman: R. Diercks, BASF SE, Ludwigshafen

14:05     E&P business of the future: the challenges of unconventional resources
               L. Siggel, Wintershall Holding GmbH, Kassel

14:50     Producing environmentally acceptable gasoline and diesel
               R. Prins, ETH Zurich/CH

15:35    Coffee break

Chairman: J.A. Lercher, Technische Universität München

16:05    From laboratory scale kinetics to industrial reactor simulation: challenges in aromatics
              hydrogenation
              J. Thybaut, Ghent University/B

16:50    Upgrading of polynuclear aromatics by selective catalytic ring opening
              J. Weitkamp, University of Stuttgart

17:35     Closing remarks

17:40     End of the infoday

The infoday is organised by