Oxidation & Dehydrogenation Catalysts

Maleic Anhydride Catalysts

BASF’s Chemical Catalysts combine the strength of BASF – with the experience and expertise of our chemists and engineers.

Our maleic anhydride catalysts are valued components of the oxidation process for worldwide chemical manufacturing companies. BASF’s commitment to the maleic anhydride process and butane oxidation to maleic anhydride catalysts results in products and services that meet and surpass customer expectations and requirements.

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Why BASF?

BASF is the only major producer of MA catalysts with:

Own Catalyst R&D with lab and pilot scale production including performance testing at Ludwigshafen, Germany
Own MA catalyst production at Ludwigshafen, Germany
Own MA reference plants under different operation conditions (e.g., single pass, recycle mode)
The excellent technical service from BASF is well known in the market from phthalic anhydride (PA) catalyst filling, start-up and customer contacts during operation. Additionally BASF further developed the new MA filling machines and ΔP measurement devices

Our latest innovation - the trilobe-shaped MA catalyst

We commercially launched the trilobe-shaped Maleic Anhydride catalyst, helping to increase profitability for PBAT applications compared to the prevalent ring-shape catalyst.

It offers:

a 1-2 percentage point higher maleic anhydride yield,
a mild hot spot temperature minimizing plant shutdowns,
an increased side crush strength for a 50% higher mechanical/chemical stability
a 10% pressure drop reduction for lower energy consumption.

Technology

BASF’s n-Butane to Maleic Anhydride Process

Maleic anhydride can be produced by passing a C4 stream containing n-butane mixed with a large excess of air into a fixed-bed tubular reactor, where the butanes are oxidized to maleic anhydride with BASF maleic anhydride catalysts.

MA Catalyst is designed for:

High performance with n-butane loads up to 44 ln-c4 /l*h
Optimized high MA product yield and high operating flexibility
Low pressure drop, constant over total lifetime
Long catalyst lifetime due to low deactivation rate
Dedicated low by-product level

The main uses of MA include:

Unsaturated polyester resin (UPR)
1,4 butanediol (BDO)
Specialty acid, such as malic, fumaric polyaspartic acids
Lubricating oil additive
Polybutylene succinate (PBS), biodegradable aliphatic polyester
Others, such as engineering plastics, fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals

Research & Development

Innovation – New Processes, Technologies and Products for a Sustainable Future

Resource-efficient solutions and business models to decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources.

Our success factors include:

Customer focus
Digitalization
Creativity
Efficiency
Collaboration with external partner

Full-scale pilot reactors for MA catalysts technology:

Best possible quality control
Most accurate performance measurements for new developments
Directly measure real scale effects
Global expenditures for research and development over € 2 billion, world leader in chemical industry
Approximately 10,000 employees world-wide involved in research and development
Around 950 new patents filed in 2020
Global Know-how Verbund with external partners

Shanghai BASF Process Catalysis R&D Center

Grand opening in 2019, dedicated R&D center for process catalysts and adsorbents research
Development of catalysts and adsorbent solutions mainly for Asian Market
Fast and timely support to our local customers, including BASF MA catalyst customers
Catalysts characterization: ICP-OES, XRF, XRD, SEM/TEM, BET, XPS
- MA composition analysis: PMA, CMA, light ends, heavy ends analysis, through GC, GC-MS
- Raw material analysis: o-Xylene and naphthalene analysis through GC, GC-MS, AAS, CHNS/O analyzer
- MA production simulation and optimization