New catalyst preparation technologies - observed from an industrial viewpoint

Catalyst industry used to be primarily technology driven. Surprisingly, although many new catalyst preparation procedures and technologies have been developed and published during the past decade, only very few methods have found application in commercial catalyst production as yet. Temporarily, cost reduction has become tho major driving force. But also in future, all new ideas have to compete cost-wise with state of the art technology. The alkoxy route to prepare alumina has been modified to produce silica-alumina or hydrotalcites. In the area of micro-porous catalysts, new production methods were necessary for the zeolite bound zeolites that have been introduced to the refinery industry, recently. Conventional paraffin isomerization catalysts, based on chlorinated alumina or mordenite zeolites, for the first time were confronted with commercial competition from the newly introduced sulfated zirconia catalyst system, that required a new production technology. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.