Design of catalysts for pour-point reduction of lube oil fractions

The discovery of new micro-porous materials has resulted in interesting applications in petroleum refining in recent times. An example is the use of molecular sieve based catalysts for pour-point (pp) reduction of petroleum oils used for lubricating oil production. Two different catalytic processes are available for the reduction of pp of petroleum oils. These are based on shape selective cracking of the n-paraffins and wax-isomerization. The requirements of the micro-porous materials for the two catalysts are different; these are discussed. The optimization of the catalyst parameters to design good catalysts for the two processes is described