Catalysts: speeding up chemical reactions

Meet Ali Al-Sharshani, a graduate recruit who is now a researcher at the Qatar Shell Research and Technology Centre where he tests catalysts.

Shell’s catalyst company, CRI/Criterion, will have spent around four years using dedicated facilities in full-time production to provide the thousands of tonnes of catalysts needed at the time of Pearl GTL’s start up.

Combined, their total surface area will be almost 18 times the size of the state of Qatar. The scale of surface area exposes huge volumes of gas to the catalyst’s chemically treated surface, maximising the number of chemical reactions. The huge surface area is the result of the catalyst many nano-sized inner channels, which create high porosity.

The catalysts will enable a reaction that will convert synthesis gas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) into the long chain hydrocarbon molecules to form GTL wax – the basis for the production of the finished GTL products.

Advances in technology have been key to making the process work efficiently on a large scale. Among other things, Shell’s development of a new advanced proprietary cobalt synthesis catalyst has significantly increased output of the GTL products. The Pearl GTL plant will use this latest type of synthesis catalyst in its 24 reactors when it starts up.

“The more efficient the catalysts, the better the productivity of the project and the greater the financial return,” says Carl Mesters, Shell Chief Scientist Chemistry and Catalysis.

For Shell, the start up of Pearl GTL will be the culmination of more than three decades of research, the filing of about 3,500 GTL-related patents and the development of some of the world's most advanced cobalt synthesis catalysts.