THE APPLIANCE
Bjerne S. Clausen, President and CEO of Haldor Topsoe
OF SCIENCE Catalysts make chemical reactions much faster. Haldor Topsoe’s catalytic technology is accelerating change all over the modern world. Peter Mercer reports.
IN
1940 Dr Haldor Topsoe, a Danish engineer and research scientist who had worked with Niels Bohr, set up his own company to develop heterogeneous catalysts. From the beginning the idea that drove the company was to build a bridge between academic research in chemistry and the practical needs of industry and, indeed, of the people of the world. Catalysis is a process that accelerates a chemical reaction that would otherwise be uselessly slow. It makes it possible to turn a wide range of resources into products that are useful, indeed often essential, to our lives. Ammonia, for example, is a key ingredient in chemical fertilisers and catalysts are indispensable to its production on a practicable scale. A typical ammonia plant will use catalysts to produce around 2,000 tons a day; without catalysts, it would take about a million days to produce the same amount. Topsoe’s catalysts have played a central role not only in hugely expanding the global production of ammonia for fertilisers but also in driving the ‘green revolution’ in the 1960s, which made possible the tripling of crop production in many developing countries and enabled them to feed their growing populations. “Haldor Topsoe himself was a key player in establishing a modern fertiliser industry in India and Bangladesh, helping these countries to build their own ammonia plants rather than rely on expensive imports,” explains Mads Cordt Gyldenkaerne, Topsoe Communications and Marketing Manager. “It was in recognition of such pioneering work that Dr Topsoe was awarded the Hoover Medial in 1991 for ‘his technical abilities and entrepreneurship, and his involvement with leaders in third world countries, which have significantly contributed to an increase in world food production through technology transfer’.” 70 Industry Europe
Today, of course, ammonia is used not only in fertilisers but to make everything from paper and plastic to vitamins and cosmetics. And catalysis itself is involved in the production of 90 per cent of commercial products. Catalysts are essential in reducing air pollution from industrial plants and road vehicles and in producing more efficient and cleaner fuels and the basic chemicals that are indispensable to modern industry. And in serving all of these needs Topsoe’s strategy remains that of marrying fundamental research to practical implementation, maintaining a synergy between R&D, process design, engineering, production and sales. That is why, for example, it acquired, in 1999, the world’s first specially manufactured electron microscope to perform in-situ catalyst studies – an unprecedented investment for a private business. In 2014 Haldor Topsoe A/S is a DKK 5.3bn privately-held company with production plants in Frederikssund, 40km from Copenhagen, and in Houston, Texas. The Danish plant employs 650 people and its 20 production lines run 24/7. The US plant was built in 1971 and employs 150 people on four production lines. The company develops and manufactures its catalysts through three main business units: Environmental, Refinery and Chemical.
Environmental solutions All over the world, Topsoe catalysts are making a major contribution to reducing air pollution. In fact the company’s first major product, the VK catalyst, which was marketed in 1944 to create sulphuric acid for use in fertilisers, is now playing a key role in solving the problem of industrial sulphur emissions. The VK catalyst portfolio has been expanded for use in a Topsoe process called Wet Gas Sulphuric Acid (WSA) which not only desulphurises toxic
gases but also converts the sulphur waste into sulphuric acid, one of the most widely used bulk chemicals in the world. Topsoe’s WSA technology is today used in steel plants, in the mining industry and in processes where coal is gasified and converted into petrochemical products. Oil refineries too use WSA technology to create commercial quality sulphuric acid from the sulphur that is removed from transportation fuels. In the automotive sector, the focus of Topsoe’s Environmental Business Unit is on treating the engine exhaust from heavy diesel vehicles. Devices using Topsoe’s SCR DeNOx catalysts are installed in the vehicle’s silencer to remove dangerous nitrogen oxides (NOx) as well as particulates and hydrocarbons. In fact, since these devices came on to the market in 2006, more than 250,000 heavy trucks and buses worldwide have been equipped with Topsoe’s SCR catalysts. The SCR DeNOx catalysts were, in fact, originally developed to treat flue gas pollution from power plants and their wide use has helped to ensure that today most of the emissions from Western European and US power plant chimneys are not dangerous nitrogen oxides but water vapour and harmless elemental nitrogen. Topsoe is also the market leader in catalytic NOx removal for gas-fired power plants, which are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to coal fired plants, particularly in the US, where shale gas is transforming the energy market. Natural gas plants create no sulphur pollution but there is still the problem of NOx emissions, as there is with all types of combustion. Peter Thoft Knudsen, Group Vice President of the Environmental Business Unit, says that growth in the emerging economies, coupled with tighter clean air legislation worldwide, will continue to fuel
