ORIGINAL ARTICLEPreface to the spec

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Preface to the special issue of the ‘‘2nd Saudi-Chinese Oil Refinery
Forum (SCORF)’’: advances in multiple catalytic strategies
for producing cleaner fuels and petrochemicals
Zi-Feng Yan1 • Hamid A. Al-Megren2 • Rui Feng1
Received: 29 July 2015 / Accepted: 6 August 2015 / Published online: 15 August 2015
The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Energy resources, especially economical fossil fuels, are the
foundation of fast economic development and ever-increasing
wealth in the world over the past decades. For
example, China has the world’s second largest oil refinery
and economic gross with a growing consumption of refined
oil products, of 518 million tons of crude oil in 2014. Considering
the broad consensus on this non-renewable resource
and the environmental pollution caused by the use of fossil
fuels, the pressure is on the government and oil refineries to
seek and develop multiple catalytic strategies for producing
cleaner fuels and the required petrochemicals.
The Saudi–Chinese Oil Refinery Forum (SCORF) provides
a regular forum for scientists and engineers from
academies and industries to get together and discuss the
latest developments in oil refinery technologies, innovative
catalysts and pollutant control in the refinery process. The
inaugural SCORF was held in Saudi Arabia in 2013,
organized by King Abdul Aziz City for Science and
Technology (KACST). The subsequent annual forum was
held in Qingdao, China, in 2014, organized by China
University of Petroleum (CUP). The 2nd SCORF,
particularly the plenary and keynote speeches, emphasized
the innovative materials for catalysts, environmentalfriendly
refinery process, sulfur recovery technology and
the integrations of refinery and process.
This special issue presents selected papers from the 2nd
SCORF 2014 pertinent to catalyst preparation and characterization,
catalytic reactions, simulation computation,
and new advances in petrochemical production and refining
technologies. These papers have been subject to an initial
screening process by the conference organizers and then a
normal peer-review process. The following are some
highlights as a general summary of the topics to cover in
this issue.
The fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process, as one of the
largest petroleum processing units in oil refineries, converts
heavy oil into beneficial intermediates such as propylene,
gasoline and diesel. The crude oil supply has continuously
become expensive in recent years; however, its quality has
become heavier and inferior, showing lower cracking
property and higher sulfur content. The paper titled ‘‘Desulfurization
of Saudi Arabian crudes by oxidation–extraction
method’’ presents the combination and
optimization of oxidation and extraction to remove the
sulfur from various oil fractions.
The primary target for oil refineries is to improve the
conversion of the FCC feedstock. One of the most effective
and efficient methods is the research and development of
FCC catalyst active components. The papers titled
‘‘Preparation and characterization of hierarchical USY by
post treatment’’ and ‘‘Preparation and catalytic performance
of high dispersion of Y zeolite treated with alkali
solution’’ present the importance of the textural and acid
properties of Y zeolite of FCC catalyst in improving the
conversion of heavy oil and product distribution.
& Zi-Feng Yan
zfyancat@upc.edu.cn
Hamid A. Al-Megren
almegren@kacst.edu.sa
Rui Feng
feng2007115@163.com
1 State Key Laboratory for Heavy Oil Processing, PetroChina
Key Laboratory of Catalysis, University of Petroleum,
266580 Qingdao, China
2 Materials Science Research Institute, King Abdulaziz City
for Science and Technology, P.O. Box 6086, Riyadh 11442,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
123
Appl Petrochem Res (2015) 5:245–246
DOI 10.1007/s13203-015-0135-9
On the other hand, the strong industrial demands for
high value propylene and butenes stimulates the research
focus on it. The papers on ‘‘Synthesis of ZSM-5 zeolite
from diatomite for fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) application’’
and ‘‘Synthesis of vanadium-based catalysts and their
excellent catalytic behaviors on dehydrogenation of C4
hydrocarbons’’ introduce two methods to produce olefins.
To make up for the rising cost of petroleum and environment
protection, oil refining industries are seeking to
broaden their energy sources. Natural gas is a clean energy
source, which has been put in ever-intensifying use due to
its relative abundance. In addition to its use as a burning
fuel, it is more efficient and economical to transform it to
basic organic raw materials and further into high value
petrochemicals via catalytic reactions. The papers titled
‘‘Ni catalysts with different promoters supported on zeolite
for dry reforming of methane’’ and ‘‘Pore size-controlled
synthesis of molecular sieves and their difference in the
catalytic properties for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis’’ present
the efficient utilization of methane via a