Sunoco,+Inc.+-+Catalytic+Cracking

 Building the Modern Refining Giant: Catalytic Cracking  Nicholas Hoppel -- HIST 285 June 10, 2009, Spring Term On March 17th, 1890, the Sun Oil Company of Ohio was born; after over 100 years of history and innovation, Sun Oil, currently Sunoco, Inc., processes over 800,000 barrels of crude per day. Sunoco headquarters rests in Philadelphia, a focal point among three North East Refining sites, including Marcus Hook and Eagle Point. The world’s first commercial catalytic cracking plant was introduced by Sunoco. This step in refining enabled Sunoco to produce twice the amount of valuable gasoline product per barrel of crude. With demands on the rise for high octane gasoline, Sun Oil Company’s catalytic cracking units played an integral role in winning World War II by supplying ample fuel for the United States and Great Britain Air Force.  Catalytic cracking technology commercialized by the Sun Oil Company and the Houdry Process is the prime contributor to fostering the growth of modern refinery industry giants and a fuel dependent nation.

Development of improved refinery technology had begun with the onset of the 20th century. As Ford Motor Company and the Model T sent the automotive industry booming, petroleum demands began to increase. Standard oil quickly became an industry embedded with cutthroat competition; entrepreneurs looked to oil as an opportunity for building an empire. Although innovation in automobile combustion engines required higher octane fuel to meet compressibility requirements, pressure for technological development came from the refining industry. Companies at the forefront of refining such as Standard Oil New Jersey took measures to secure a competitive edge in the market by engaging in conspiracies; wherein, GM would increase the compression ratio each year on all new cars so a higher octane number gasoline would be required by the new heat engines (Kirkbride 33). Octane number, although an arbitrary designation of compressibility ratio experimental results, was an important limiting factor in engine efficiency. Too low of an octane number will yield knocking, or combustion occurring outside of the optimum compression valve envelope. A common practice by most petroleum companies of the day included adding tetraethyl lead (TEL) to gasoline to boost the octane content. The increase of octane number requirements during this time benefitted refineries who had access licenses to utilize TEL (Giebelhaus 268). Whereas, the Sun Oil Company could not produce gasoline with TEL additives on account of patent limitations, leaving them at a significant disadvantage. The Sun Oil Company employed several advertisement techniques, boasting a superior premium cut of fuel, free of lead, but this method of doing business could not last due to the increasing requirements of octane and complaints to the Better Business Bureau from industry competition (Giebelhaus 268). The Sun Oil Company was desperate for a new means of attaining a higher octane fuel composition.

Eugene Houdry was a race car enthusiast, educated as a mechanical engineer. Chalmer Kirkbride, who was at one time a co-worker of Houdry’s, calls Eugene an artist, using a research laboratory to keep his ideas scientifically sound. It was this mentality and some good fortune that brought the Houdry Process to the early forefront of refining innovation. After stumbling upon a pharmacist making gasoline out of gas oil and clay, Houdry began winning races with fuel that he created (Kirkbride 32). Eugene started researching ways of improving the clay catalyst life, as it would only last a minute until the reactive sites would “coke up.” Houdry looked for support from many companies, beginning in France. Socony-Vacuum of Paulsboro New Jersey finally agreed to work with Houdry in 1931, where he then established the Houdry Process Corporation along with several French associates (Houdry). Upon finding that extensive funding would be required to fully realize the potential of Houdry’s idea, Socony-Vacuum discontinued support for Houdry’s research, but retained 1/3 ownership of H.P.C (Oblad 70). The lack of interest in Houdry’s proposition is evidence of subpar Research and Development programming across the industry. It was not until a desperate Arthur Pew of the Sun Oil Company approached Houdry that the H.P.C. landed a deal; Houdry estimated that it would take him six months and fifty thousand dollars to commercialize his process (Kirkbride 35). Sun Oil and Pew did not appear to Houdry as desperate, but recognized that Houdry’s estimation was significantly short. Sun Oil Company proposed financing the entire project, asking for the means of producing numerous commercial units (Kirkbride 35). Houdry was closely supervised by Sun Oil management during his work, knowing what grade of product was needed to compete with TEL gasoline. Eleven million dollars and three years later, Sun built the first commercial catalytic cracking unit. In the mean time, Sun Oil purchased a third of H.P.C., and Socony-Vacuum retained access to all of H.P.C. information development (Geibelhaus 269). Thus, Socony-Vacuum was able to capitalize on Sun Oil’s investment, but not without a relatively small three million dollar settlement to Sun.

Although Sun Oil Company’s inability to produce high octane gasoline with TEL may have initially hindered business, Standard Oil New Jersey’s efforts to hike octane requirements resulted in a victory for Sun Oil. The unique marketing strategy that the Sun Oil Company had evolved by the early 1930’s created a fertile ground for Sun Oil’s unique refining development, the Houdry Process for catalytic cracking. Traditional thermal cracking yielded 72-73 maximum octane number, while the Houdry Process Units could produce 85 octane number gasoline, unleaded (Giebelhaus 312). From a purely economic viewpoint, investment in the Houdry Process Corporation was not wise in 1933, but Sun Oil’s unique product demands and the independent stance of the Pew family management allowed Sun Oil to flourish. Houdry’s Process took the relatively useless cuts of crude and made gasoline out of them, turning profits on new product and minimizing wastes. This caught the eyes of the rest of the refining industry, but Houdry was an artist, not a business man. Socony-Vacuum began improving a catalytic cracking unit design upon the success of Sun Oil’s commercialized Houdry Process (Oblad 69). Although Sun Oil reached a short term agreement with H.P.C., many refineries began looking into ways to build a catalytic cracking unit of their own.

The fixed-catalyst bed cracking unit designed by Houdry became the focal point of gasoline production for the early years of World War II. Houdry plants produced 90% of all aviation gasolines for the Allies during the first two years of the war (Oblad 73). J. Howard Pew was quoted stating, “Without catalytic cracking it would have been impossible to meet the aviation gasoline requirements of the flying forces. Thus, no man has made a greater contribution to the war effort than our friend, Eugene J. Houdry” (Oblad 74). Allied aviation fuel was composed of 100+ octane research octane number gasoline; the Axis had a maximum of 90 octane number. Sun Oil Company was in a very good position when War broke out; Houdry base stock became the heart of American’s 100 octane aviation fuel program and brought large profits to Sun Oil. 1.1 million barrels/month of 100 octane gasoline were shipped out for military aviation support in 1945 (Mills). The Houdry gasoline provided a 15-30% increase in engine power for takeoff and climbing, a 15-20% decrease in cruising fuel consumption, a 25% increase in payload, a 10% increase in maximum speed, and a 12% increase in service ceiling (Johnson). The entire Sun Oil Company benefitted from wartime growth and emerged as a leading petroleum company. As the military offered funding for supporting the war effort, the rest of the refining industry saw their catalytic cracking plans come to fruition.

Although the Houdry group begun the war leading the industry in catalytic cracking, by the end of the conflict, the Houdry Process Corportation was in disarray (Mills). This is partly explained by natural market forces, where an early leader in technology often becomes handicapped by the leadership. Thermofor Catalytic Cracking was introduced by Socony-Vacuum, with moving catalyst beds (Geibelhaus 240). Fluidized bed technology began to appear as a means of achieving a more efficient cracking process, as well, with huge government investment in Fluid Process units putting substantial pressure on the Houdry units. In the final analysis, however, Sun Oil received more from the Houdry units than Houdry himself. Sun Oil became a major producer of aviation fuel under government contract (Mills).

Several new technologies began to appear as a result of R&D improvement in the petroleum industry made possible by commercialized catalytic cracking. Alkylation, isomerization, polymerization, and hydroforming were all high-octane blending processes required to create the vital 100+ octane gasoline for WWII (Johnson). Refining across the board became a more liberal science, bringing together a broad based knowledge infrastructure including not only catalysis, but also metallurgy, alkylation, energy and utility management, and distillation. Houdry remained focused on national need or deficiency. His work in cracking matured and he shifted his focus to the Allied rubber shortage by designing an n-butane dehydrogenation plant, yet another result of Houdry’s catalytic cracking developments (Johnson). By aiding in the synthetic development of rubber, Houdry was able to help mobilize the Allied troops in more than one fashion. In the later 1940s the U.S. government funded building such a butadiene rubber plant, but it was designed, constructed, and operated by Sun Oil (Johnson).

Catalytic cracking is still the main process for large-scale gasoline production even seventy years after its introduction, with the U.S. producing well over 5.5 million barrels per day from over 100 refining companies in 2008. Although the process of catalytic cracking units have changed over the years, Houdry’s design was the catalyst that facilitated further development in the refining industry. World War II provided a platform for Houdry’s development to shine. A post-war nation began to grow into the volume of production that the military had been requiring with automobiles and home heating oil. The growth of fuel production allowed the development of the automotive industry after the war by making premium quality gasoline available in large quantities at a reasonable cost. This in turn, had an overwhelming effect on transportation. At the end of WWII, the U.S. catalytic cracking capacity was over 900,000 barrels per day, and in 2003, the US consumed 8 million barrels of gasoline per day (Occeli 2). Despite the excellent progress in catalytic cracking, TEL was not phased out of gasoline production following WWII, while Sun Oil resumed marketing non-leaded motor gasoline. Houdry recognized that TEL was toxic, as were the carbon oxides being expelled from the increased number of autos on the road. He designed the first catalytic converter for car exhaust systems, and spent the rest of his life attempting to improve human life through catalysis in respiration devices. “No one ever thought of him as a businessman… He was a dreamer” (Mills).

Bibliography Giebelhaus, August G. __The Rise of an Independent Major: The Sun Oil Company, 1876-1945__. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor Michigan, 1977 pgs. 243- 418. Houdry Research Publications. Volume I, 1942 -1952, Houdry Process Corporation. Research Staff Publications. Johnson, Arthur M. __The Challenge of Change: the Sun Oil Company 1945-1977__. Ohio State University Press: Columbus 1983. Kirkbride, Chalmer G. __Oral History__. Chemical Heritage Society, James J. Bohning. 15 July 1993. Milles, Alex G. __Catalysis: The craft according to Houdry__. Chemtech February. 1986. Oblad, Alex G. __The Contributions of Eugene J. Houdry to the Development of Catalytic Cracking__. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 1983, pgs. 64-74. Occelli, Mario L. __Fluid Catalytic Cracking: Role in Modern Refining__. American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C. 1988, pgs. 2-4.