World War II provided a driving force for developing catalytic technologies to increase the yield of distillate fuels. There was an extremely high demand for petroleum-derived products during the war. Such products or uses included paving runways, making toluene for explosives, manufacturing synthetic rubbers for tires, lubricants for firepower and machinery. Although, the majority of the petroleum was distilled to produce gasoline to fuel trucks, tanks, and airplanes. Thus, the previous thermal refinery processes were improved upon and more efficient catalytic refining processes were introduced. Such catalytic processes include catalytic cracking, catalytic reforming, alkylation, hydrotreating and polymerization. All these processes emphasized improving the yield and octane number of the gasoline produced. Catalytic cracking utilized fluidized bed for continuous regeneration which enabled production to be much more efficient than its thermal cracking counterpart. Furthermore, the process has useful byproducts that could be used as petrochemical feedstocks for other processes. The catalytic reforming process, which was based on the cyclic process, enabled increased production benzene for styrene, toluene for explosives, and aromatics for aviation fuel. In addition, a considerable quantity of hydrogen is produced as a byproduct of the catalytic reforming process. This hydrogen can be used for hydrotreating petroleum fractions to remove heteroatoms, in particular sulfur. Additional processes such as alkylation and polymerization utilized olefins and paraffinic reactions to increase the octane number of gasoline. Thus, the advent of such processes to meet the high demand of gasoline during World War 2 marked the beginning of the catalytic refinery period.

Refrences:

Course Website

Catalytic Refinery, 1940 – 1970, F. Self, E. Ekholm, and K. Bowers, Refining Overview – Petroleum, Processes and Products, AIChE CD-ROM, 2000