Oklahoma Materials Recycling and Veolia partner to recycle hydrotreating catalyst

Veolia ES Technical Solutions, LLC, the hazardous waste division of Veolia Environmental Services North America, and Oklahoma Materials Recycling (OMR) have signed a teaming agreement whereby Veolia will exclusively provide up-front sales and marketing services for OMR’s catalyst recycling plant currently under construction in Atoka, Oklahoma.

The new plant uses proprietary ACTR technology developed by Advanced Fibers and Powders and licensed by OMR. This approach to catalyst recycling provides a new option for the petroleum refining industry to recycle spent hydrotreating catalysts containing the valuable base metal molybdenum (Mo). Using a thermal chemical process instead of the current hydrometallurgical process to recover Mo, the plant has several advantages:

•The plant produces no liquid discharges, thereby mitigating environmental issues that can be problematic for competing technologies.

•It minimizes the use of water in the process of producing molybdic oxide saving precious water resources.

•The technology is capable of separating tungsten from molybdenum allowing refinery companies to recycle hydrotreating and hydrocracking catalysts that contain both metals. Current hydrometallurgical technologies are not able to effectively process spent catalysts with both metals present.

The OMR recycling operation will meet the highest standards for environmental compliance and stewardship regarding storage and handling of catalyst, air emissions and water discharges. Petroleum refining customers can have confidence that their feedstocks will be recycled responsibly. The plant construction is rapidly progressing with plans to begin processing catalyst in late second quarter 2011.