US Patent 9,441,169 by Gargano and Halpern was issued this month to Ultraclean Fuel that uses phase-transfer catalysis to impressively remove sulfur from hydrocarbons to comply with the strictest standards for petrochemical products.
In particular, “ultralow sulfur diesel” (ULSD) containing only 10 ppm or less of sulfur was achieved in a single step from refinery diesel at about 4000 ppm sulfur, from transmix diesel at about 400 ppm sulfur and from jet fuel at about 1500 ppm sulfur using a phase-transfer catalyst, a phosphotungstate catalyst and hydrogen peroxide. The sulfur compounds in the diesel are mostly thiophene derivatives and they are oxidized to sulfones and separated from the diesel.
Phase-transfer catalysis enables this breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize sulfur emissions from fossil fuels and make a huge impact on reducing acid rain.
If your company wants to achieve breakthroughs using phase-transfer catalysis, now contact Marc Halpern of PTC Organics Inc., as done by Ultraclean Fuel, to explore a path to make your mark on saving jobs (maybe your own), improving the environment or just plain increasing profit.
About Marc Halpern
Dr. Halpern is founder and president of PTC Organics, Inc., the only company dedicated exclusively to developing low-cost high-performance green chemistry processes for the manufacture of organic chemicals using Phase Transfer Catalysis. Dr. Halpern has innovated PTC breakthroughs for pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, petrochemicals, monomers, polymers, flavors & fragrances, dyes & pigments and solvents. Dr. Halpern has provided PTC services on-site at more than 260 industrial process R&D departments in 37 countries and has helped chemical companies save > $200 million. Dr. Halpern co-authored five books including the best-selling “Phase-Transfer Catalysis: Fundamentals, Applications and Industrial Perspectives” and has presented the 2-day course “Practical Phase-Transfer Catalysis” at 50 locations in the US, Europe and Asia.
Dr. Halpern founded the journal “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis” and “The PTC Tip of the Month” enjoyed by 2,100 qualified subscribers, now beyond 130 issues. In 2014, Dr. Halpern is celebrating his 30th year in the chemical industry, including serving as a process chemist at Dow Chemical, a supervisor of process chemistry at ICI, Director of R&D at Sybron Chemicals and founder and president of PTC Organics Inc. (15 years) and PTC Communications Inc. (20 years). Dr. Halpern also co-founded PTC Interface Inc. in 1989 and PTC Value Recovery Inc. in 1999. His academic breakthroughs include the PTC pKa Guidelines, the q-value for quat accessibility and he has achieved industrial PTC breakthroughs for a dozen strong base reactions as well as esterifications, transesterifications, epoxidations and chloromethylations plus contributed to more than 100 other industrial PTC process development projects.
Dr. Halpern has dedicated his adult life to his family and to phase-transfer catalysis (in that order!).
