Importance of Elemental Analysis on Petroleum Catalysts

Catalysts are integral to crude oil refining and Petrochemical industries, a global sector that produces trillions of barrels of fuel and billions of pounds of chemicals annually. More than 90% of chemical products are petroleum derived, and catalytic processes drive most transformations within modern refineries. The catalyst market exceeds $650 million annually in the United States and over $1 billion worldwide. Considering this scale, even a modest reduction in catalyst performance can have severe economic consequences. Imagine the magnitude of production losses resulting from only a 5% decrease in catalyst performance. Such losses directly impact refinery efficiency, product quality, and overall profitability.

HORIBA has been helping the petroleum industry and catalyst manufacturers by providing a wide range of analytical instruments for monitoring the chemical and physical properties of the catalyst.

The most important elements in petroleum and thus need to be monitored in terms of the performance of catalysts are Carbon, Sulfur, and Chlorine.




Effective operation of the catalytic reactor requires the operator to keep a proper balance between the acid sites and the metallic sites that control the desirable selective conversion of feed to the desired products.

For carbon and sulfur determination in catalysts, the HORIBA EMIA-series provides accurate quantification of both elements from sub ppm levels up to high percent concentrations. Efficient extraction of carbon and sulfur from sample with high-frequency induction furnace and fast automated cleaning cycle delivers reliable rapid total carbon and sulfur measurement. Intuitive EMIA software guides users through every stage of analysis, from method development to diagnostics and troubleshooting.

The measurement requires only a few milligrams of catalyst and proper accelerants in a ceramic crucible. The crucible will be heated up to 3000oC in an induction furnace under pure oxygen atmosphere. Under this condition all carbon from the sample converts to CO and CO2 gases and the sulfur to SO2. Emitted gases will be detected by four NDIR detectors. The software does all the calculations and reports the results at theend. The entire measurement takes less than 60 seconds.

The role of Chlorine and maintaining the chlorination level cannot be over-estimated. If the Chlorine level gets out of balance, undesirable side reactions occur resulting in Coke formation and ultimately, catalyst deactivation. HORIBA offers suitable solutions to the above mentioned challenges.

HORIBA's MESA 7220 V2 package provides an economic advantage to the refiner. It is a turnkey package; no developmental work is involved, nor is a highly skilled operator required. It is ready to go, and easy to operate. It could be considered field portable and could be set up in the plant rather than at the laboratory. This would make it an “At-Line” analyzer. The additional data, the direct analysis of the Chlorine content of the catalyst, would serve to allow more accurate control of the Chlorine content of the catalyst bed.


HORIBA provides application specific solutions designed to meet the complex analytical demands of the catalyst industry. Our MESA 7220 V2 Analyzer delivers outstanding dynamic range, measuring sulfur from low levels of 0.07 ppm up to 10.0 wt %, and chlorine from 0.6 ppm to 10.0 wt %. This provides confidence across varying feedstocks and processing conditions.

MESA-7220V2 Setup for Catalyst Quality Testing

Analysis of samples from a catalyst unit ranged from 0.9 wt % Chlorine (heavily Coked) to 1.2 wt % Chlorine. Fresh Catalyst, reported to be approximately 1.3 wt % Chlorine.

The analysis is quick and simple:

• Extract the sample from the reactor unit and cool.

• Place 7-10 grams of sample into the mill and mill for 3 minutes.

• Pack the sample into the sample holder.

• Place the sample holder into MESA 7220 V2 unit and analyze for 200 seconds.

Milling time, packing, analysis all total less than 20 minutes!

As an example, three 10-gram aliquots of the same sample of catalyst (2 mm beads) were ground in the small, portable laboratory mill under controlled conditions. Each aliquot was split and packed into duplicate standard HORIBA sample cells.
The resulting 6 specimens were then analyzed using two different MESA-7220V2 units, both pre-calibrated for Chlorine:



Summary of Results

The quality of this data is excellent, with the results averaging 1.00 +/- 0.01 wt % Chlorine. We would like to stress the reproducibility between the two MESA units.