Tag: Johnson Matthey

Maire Tecnimont subsidiary MyRechemical has been awarded a basic engineering contract for a waste to methanol and hydrogen plant to be located in Empoli, Tuscany. The scope of work includes the basic engineering design of the plant and the provision of necessary documentation to start the plant’s public authorisation process with the Tuscany region. The basic engineering phase is expected to be completed by the end of 2022. Once completed, the plant will process 256,000 t/a of non-recyclable waste and will produce 125,000 t/a of methanol and 1,400 t/a of hydrogen. The plant will use MyRechemical’s chemical conversion technology which allows the recovery of waste that cannot be mechanically recycled, or other types of unsortable dry waste. The carbon and hydrogen in the waste are converted via gasification into synthesis gas, which is used to produce low-carbon methanol and hydrogen.

In a major blow to the British fertilizer industry, CF Fertilisers UK announced the closure of its Ince production site in north-west England in June (see p8). Ince is the UK’s largest compound fertilizer producer, operating three NPK+S units. It also manufactures large volumes of ammonium nitrate (AN) for Britain’s farmers. At the heart of the Cheshire complex is Ince’s long-standing ammonia plant. Unfortunately, high natural gas costs have kept this shuttered since September last year.

Ammonia synthesis catalysts have seen major improvements over the last 100 years, and they are highly optimised with respect to activity, thermal stability, and poisoning resistance. Improving such catalysts even further requires a deep understanding of their structure and the impact of different parameters on performance. Clariant, Johnson Matthey and Topsoe report on their studies and developments in ammonia synthesis catalysts.

CRU’s Nitrogen + Syngas conference returned to a face to face meeting for the first time in two years at the end of March this year.

The CRU Nitrogen + Syngas Conference returns to Berlin for a live event from 28-30 March 2022. The conference will be run as a hybrid event giving participants the option to attend live in-person or online via the virtual platform.

The production of syngas from hydrocarbon feedstock uses a number of catalytic steps to increase efficiency and maximise conversion while minimising energy consumption. In this article we report on the latest developments in water gas shift catalysis from Johnson Matthey, Clariant and Topsoe, and shift converter design from Casale.

KP Engineering, LP specialising in the design and execution of customized EPC solutions for the refining, syngas, hydrogen and renewable fuels industries, has named Bill Preston as its new president and Chief Executive Officer. Based in Houston, Preston has served as KPE’s president and Chief Operating Officer since 2015. During that time, he was responsible for leading significant growth and upholding KPE’s core operational values of respect and integrity. As CEO, he will be responsible for the overall direction, execution and global expansion of the company. Preston has 34 years of experience leading and growing technology-based businesses in the engineering, oil and gas, energy and chemical production sectors. Prior to joining KP Engineering, he served in vice president roles for companies including a division of Texaco and ChevronTexaco, Linc Energy, Synthesis Energy Systems and GreatPoint Energy. He also served as CEO of The Energy Capital Group, developing syngas and chemical production facilities in the petrochemical and oil refining industries. He is currently the Executive Director of the Global Syngas Technologies Council, the hydrogen and syngas industry’s premier trade association.

Topsoe has begun operations at a demonstration plant for the production of methanol from biogas. The aim is to validate the company’s electrified technology for cost-competitive production of sustainable methanol from biogas as well as other products. The project is supported by the EUDP Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program and is developed together with Aarhus University, Sintex A/S, Blue World Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Energinet A/S, Aalborg University, and Plan-Energi. The demonstration plant is located at Aarhus University’s research facility in Foulum, and will have an annual capacity of 7.9 t/a of CO 2 -neutral methanol from biogas and green power and is scheduled to be fully operational by the beginning of 2022. It uses Topsoe’s eSMR ™ technology, which is CO 2 -neutral when based on biogas as feedstock and green electricity for heating. It also uses half the CO 2 that makes up about 40% of biogas and typically is costly to separate and vent in production of grid quality biogas.

Johnson Matthey’s latest methanol synthesis catalyst, KATALCO™ 51-102, was introduced in 2018 to offer improved catalyst stability and therefore higher end-of-life activity and extended lifetimes than conventional methanol synthesis catalysts. Since launch, KATALCO 51-102 has been successfully installed in two methanol plants and a third is planned for later in the year. In this article Johnson Matthey provides an update on the proven performance of KATALCO 51-102 during lab and pilot scale testing as well as in customer plants. The application of catalysts made using the KATALCO 51-102 technology for methanol synthesis via new ‘green’ routes, such as using captured and purified CO2 in conjunction with ‘green’ hydrogen, is also discussed.

Johnson Matthey and MyRechemical have formed an alliance to commercially develop waste to methanol technology. In this article, two different approaches to waste disposal and chemical production are analysed: a post combustion scenario with waste incineration and hydrogenation of the CO2 recovered from flue gas to produce methanol, and a precombustion approach with waste gasification followed by conversion of synthesis gas into methanol.