Both, environmental concerns and changes in the refinery diet strongly impact the area of catalysis. Increasingly stringent quality levels are required for the oil derived products. Unfortunately, the quality of the refinery diet is decreasing severely due to the augmented incorporation of heavy oils. In this work, several catalytic approaches to overcome these challenges will be discussed:
traditional concepts for new designs, like superacids, meso/macro-porous materials, and others, and
new formulations and concepts i.e. ultra-activity, biocatalysts, electrocatalysts, high throughput experimentation, computational catalysis and selectivity improvements.
Product markets are also changing. In short term an increase in fuel demand at the expense of heating oil could be expected. In long term (~2020+), a new threat for fuel consumption will appear in the scenario: fuel cell vehicles. The most convenient alternative would be to endeavour innovative routes to introduce an oil derived fuel, for both the onboard and offboard H2 production. At the very long term, new uses of oil have to point towards a direction far from CO2 production. These last targets should direct the basic research activities in catalysis. ppm. By 2005, the refinery average will be set at
30 ppm, with a production cap of 300 ppm and a corporate average of 90 ppm and at 2006 Catalytic processes in the oil industry refiners must meet a 30 ppm average sulfur represent the vast majority of the installed level, with a cap of 80 ppm. It is clear, that the units. So, Catalysis becomes a fundamental trend is converging to zero sulfur. driver for the economics and, nowadays, an In the same way, rules and product quality strong factor of the environmental viability standards are being shared by different countries of the industry. Furthermore, Catalysis through integrated market blocks or market development and understanding is essential agreements. This leads to technological to the majority of refining and petrochemical accelerated and multi-shared developments in an advances. The new to come technical environmentally-minded user. improvements and breakthroughs would be the consequence of a molecular knowledge 1.2. Resources and markets of the process. This paper will discuss, after An increase on heavier feedstocks has a brief description of the possible scenarios, already began and will be a constant factor in the the general trends which lead catalysis into future. Besides, the environmental constrains, science and engineering and how the the oil prices and the natural gas availability (in objectives can be accomplished by the certain regions) will bring into scene Gas-To- development of new concepts and new Liquids (GTL) derived fuels. The incorporation materials. of natural gas as a refining fee
