MOSCOW (MRC) -- Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, has successfully expanded production capacity for Houdry dehydrogenation catalysts at its Louisville/Kentucky, USA plant, reported the company on its site.
The double-digit million Swiss francs debottlenecking investment will support increasing demand for Houdry catalysts driven mainly by shale gas development. The facility will come on-stream in mid-October 2013 as planned.
Houdry dehydrogenation catalysts are used in the petrochemical industry to produce C3- and C4-olefins (including butadiene) from light paraffin using the CATOFIN and CATADIENE technologies, which are licensed through CB&I, one of the world’s leading engineering, procurement and construction companies and a major process technology licensor.
CATOFIN technology and catalyst correspond to a reliable and less complex production process for on-purpose olefins/butadiene production with efficient energy consumption. New generations of catalysts with significant performance improvement have been commercialized successfully in the last few years. CATOFIN technology has been selected by 32 licensees worldwide and is in operation in 12 units today, including the largest propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit currently in operation with a capacity exceeding 500,000 tpa. Over the last four years, 15 new plants have been licensed. A 600,000 tpa CATOFIN PDH unit will start operation in 2013, while a 750,000 tpa CATOFIN PDH will start up in 2015. The CATOFIN process offers superior selectivity, on-stream efficiency and revamp potential.
Stefan Heuser, Senior Vice President, Head of BU Catalysts at Clariant comments: "Increasing production capacity for our proprietary, high-performance Houdry catalysts is an important part of Clariant’s growth strategy to capture opportunities driven by shale gas development which creates significant need for on-purpose olefin production. With vast experience gained over decades to support our customers in achieving reliable operation, Clariant is well positioned to serve this market".
As MRC wrote previously, Clariant has recently introduced AddWorks, its new brand for polymer additives solutions. It consists of: AddWorks, application oriented solutions specifically designed by segments of the plastics industry
AddWorks LXR, a new range of polymer additives designed to provide particular effects in a wide variety of applications.
Clariant AG is a Swiss chemical company and a world leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the textile, printing, mining and metallurgical industries. It is engaged in processing crude oil products in pigments, plastics and paints.
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