Houdry catalytic cracking

Figure 19. Moving bed catalytic crackers (A) Thermoform moving bed process (B) Houdry catalytic cracking process.

The Houdry fixed-bed cyclic units were soon displaced in the 1940s by the superior Fluid Catalytic Cracking process pioneered by Warren K. Lewis of MIT and Eger Murphree and his team of engineers at Standard Oil of Newjersey (now Exxon). Murphree and his team demonstrated that hundreds of tons of fine catalyst could be continuously moved like a fluid between the cracking reactor and a separate vessel for... 

Enos, J. L. (1962). Petroleum Progress and Protits Allistoiy of Process Innovation. Cambridge, MA MIT Press. Mosely, C. G. (1984). Eugene Houdry, Catalytic Cracking and World War II Aviation Gasoline. Journal of Chemical Education 61 655—656. 

Fluid catalytic cracking rapidly overtook its competitors as both a source of fuel and of critical organic intermediates. Prior to 1942, the Houdry Process controlled 90 percent of the catalytic fuel market. But only three years later, in 1945, fluid cracking led all other catalytic cracking processes in market share (40 percent). At this time Thermofor technology stood at 31 percent, and Houdry at less chan 30 percent. 

The Houdry Process is used in the catalytic cracking of petroleum. 

Thermal cracking was the first crude oil refining process to contribute more useful products from a barrel of oil than straight distillation [80]. Houdry s development of catalytic cracking shortly before World War II spurred then Standard Oil of New... 

Prior to 1938, gasoline was obtained from thermal-cracking plants then the Houdry fixed-bed catalytic cracking process led to the development of a fluidized-bed process by Standard Oil for the catalytic production of motor fuels (4-8). Acid-treated clays of the montmorilIonite type were the first fluid-cracking catalysts widely employed by the industry. However, the ever greater demand for aviation fuels during the 1939-1945 period prompted the search for more active and selective catalysts. Research on novel catalyst... 

The application of catalysis to the production of motor fuel by cracking of less volatile petroleum oils was first investigated in France by Eugene J. Houdry in the period 1927 to 1930. The results from these investigations clearly established the superiority of catalytically cracked gasoline over that made by the thermal processes the economic possibilities were also indicated. 

Types and Properties. The properties of the catalysts used with the Houdry fixed-bed process, and with all true catalytic cracking processes, comprise the major factor not only in promoting the desired reactions, but also in the design and economy of construction and operation of the plant. 

It is gratifying to the technicians of the Houdry Process Corp., Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., and Sun Oil Co. that a number of these engineering features developed in connection with the first commercial applications of fixed-bed catalytic cracking have proved of considerable interest to other industries where they are currently used. 

Houdry fixed-bed catalytic cracking a cyclic regenerable process for cracking of distillates. 

Like nitrogen fixation on the eve of World War I, catalytic cracking had tremendous economic and geopolitical significance. Through 1943, Houdry units and after that fluidized bed units accounted for most of the aviation gasoline available to the United States and its allies in World War II. 

It is no exaggeration to say that without catalysts Germany would have been in no condition to pursue its war effort until November 1918. Likewise, if Houdry had not developed in the early days of World War II its catalytic cracking process, the United States would have found it very hard to provide its bombers with light fuel. It was also through catalytic reforming that the United States managed to obtain from petroleum the toluene needed to produce TNT between 1941 and 1945. 

The developers of new processes have found it at times more expedient to set up their own separate entities to supply the catalysts they were advocating. Allied-Signal s subsidiary UOP did so for its platforming Houdry for its catalytic cracking Ralph Landau for the silver catalyst used for direct ethylene oxidation, which was marketed by Halcon SD and subsequently taken over by Denka, then by Bayer and Phillips Chemical for its polyolefin catalysts, sold through its subsidiary, Catalyst Resources. 

The first successful catalytic cracking process was the Houdry process, announced in 1933 (132) and commercialized in 1936 (172). This was a fixed-bed process employing, at first, an activated bentonite clay as catalyst. It had been known previously that certain types of decolorizing clays catalyzed the decomposition of hydrocarbon oils (165,188), but a carbonaceous deposit rapidly accumulated on the clay and seriously impaired its activity. During his early work in France, between 1927 and 1930, Houdry found that catalyst activity could be maintained at a satisfactory level by carefully burning off the carbonaceous deposit, or coke, at frequent intervals before the concentration became high enough to interfere seriously with the desired catalytic reactions. 

Commercial fixed-bed catalytic cracking includes the Houdry process and the Cycloversion process. Of the two, the Houdry process has been much more widely used. 

Fig. 1. Flow diagram of Houdry catalytic cracking unit. [Lassiat and Thayer, Oil Gas J. 45, No. 13, 84 (1946). Reprinted by permission.]...

The story begins in the early 1930s. Our researchers were trying to develop a catalytic cracking process, and they learned that Eugene Houdry was doing similar work in France. His work was further advanced and Houdry was persuaded to join our lab in Paulsboro, New Jersey. 

---