Best Paper Award from AIChE

Dr. Shinya Hodoshima et al., members of Research & Development Center, made an oral presentation regarding producing propylene in the 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Spring Annual Meeting & 10th Global Congress on Process Safety held in New Orleans, U.S.A. from March 30 to April 3, 2014, and won the Best Paper Award in the Fuels & Petrochemicals Division of AIChE.

AIChE is the most authoritative academic organization in the field of chemical engineering with over 45,000 scientists and engineers. A lot of scientists and engineers all over the world participate in AIChE's annual meetings held in every spring and autumn, where excellent papers are commended twice a year.

The paper, "Efficient propylene production by catalytic cracking of light naphtha with MFI-zeolite/metal-oxide composites", was selected among 204 papers presented in the Fuels & Petrochemicals Division of AIChE, while the total papers in this meeting were about 800.

It focused on the excellent properties of zeolite-based catalysts on the basis of original concept for producing propylene (e.g., high activities, long lifetime and high energy-efficiency) in terms of catalytic chemistry and chemical engineering. Propylene is quite important as a raw material in the petrochemical industry and mainly produced by thermal steam-cracking of hydrocarbon feedstock such as naphtha at present. However, alternative methods are intensively desired to improve both huge energy consumption and low propylene selectivity. Our paper suggests the feasibility of an energy-saving propylene production by means of fixed-bed-type catalytic cracking using our catalysts, and received high appraisal. Chiyoda will accelerate research & development to commercialize this technology in the near future for the contribution to petrochemical industry.

Prize winners：Dr. Shinya Hodoshima (Presenter), Azusa Motomiya, Shuhei Wakamatsu and Dr. Fuyuki Yagi

Affiliation：Research and Development Center, Chiyoda Corporation

Paper title：Efficient propylene production by catalytic cracking of light naphtha with MFI-zeolite/metal-oxide composites

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