The Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis Experts

PTC Tip of the Month E-Newsletter

PTC Tip of the Month - February 2019

Scale Up of PTC Ultralow Desulfurization of Fossil Hydrocarbons

By Marc Halpern, the leading expert in industrial phase-transfer catalysis.

A patent was just issued to Ultraclean Fuel with Gordon Gargano and Marc Halpern as the inventors that describes the large scale desulfurization of fossil fuel hydrocarbons to produce “ultralow sulfur diesel” (ULSD) and other ultralow sulfur hydrocarbon products that contain less than 10 ppm sulfur. These outstanding results require the use of a carefully selected phase-transfer catalyst, a phosphotungstate co-catalyst and hydrogen peroxide to oxidize covalently bound sulfur to sulfones. The sulfones are removed from the hydrocarbon stream to produce high quality desulfurized product. The patent reference is Gargano, G.; Halpern, M.; (Ultraclean Fuel Pty Ltd) US Patent 10,214,697, 26-Feb-2019.

Process equipment is described (Figures 4-6) that can process 1,500 barrels per day of high sulphur hydrocarbon feed (63,000 gallons) with the potential for 15,000 barrels per day (630,000 gallons).

This patent is a follow up to US Patent 9,441,169 by Gargano and Halpern.

The impressive breakthrough results are as follows:

“Transmix/Diesel feed containing a total sulphur level of 271 ppm was successfully desulphurised to a total sulphur level of 0 ppm according to ASTM D5623 standards and from 334 ppm to 2 ppm according to ASTM D5453 standards.”

“Transmix Diesel Hydrocarbon containing a total sulphur level of 407 ppm was successfully desulphurized to a total sulphur level of 9.2 ppm.”

“Refinery Diesel Hydrocarbon containing a total sulphur level of 3996 ppm was successfully desulphurized to a total sulphur level of 10 ppm.”

“Natural Gas Condensate containing a total sulphur level of 432 ppm was successfully desulphurized to a total sulphur level of 4.8 ppm.”

“Jet Fuel containing a total sulphur level of 1518 ppm was successfully desulphurized to a total sulphur level of 9 ppm.”

This patent is a good example of achieving a major process breakthrough by integrating the highly specialized expertise of Marc Halpern of PTC Organics with the highly specialized expertise of a company in their primary field of focus. Your company should similarly consider achieving major breakthrough process technology to achieve best in class competitive advantage.

Now contact Marc Halpern of PTC Organics to inquire about collaboration to improve your company’s profit and achieve low-cost high-performance green chemistry.

About Marc Halpern

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!).

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