American oil & gas giant, Chevron, and petroleum process technology company, Honeywell UOP, have announced the successful start-up of the world's first ionic liquids alkylation unit.

Here's some context:

Over half of the world's refineries utilize alkylation units to convert isobutane and light alkenes into a mixture of mostly isoheptane and isooctane. Refiners install this expensive unit to produce more high-octane gasoline instead of selling more LPG only when it makes economic sense.

So, what's special about this new technology?

Until now, all alkylation units used either sulfuric acid or hydrofluoric acid to catalyze the reaction. This new technology catalyzes the reaction with an ionic liquid (think of it like liquid table salt—except only at 100°C). That has quite a few benefits including, but not limited to, "simpler handling procedures" thanks to the low vapor pressure of ionic liquids relative to those strong acids.

Read the press release here.

Canadian-based battery recycling start-up, Li-Cycle, has announced that it will be building a new lithium-ion battery recycling facility near Pheonix, AZ.

What that facility is doing:

Li-Cycle is tackling battery recycling by building decentralized "spokes" that will feed centralized "hubs". This new plant is a spoke—which means that it mechanically shreds used lithium-ion batteries to produce a mixture of lithium, manganese, cobalt, and nickel. That mixture is then sent to a hub to refine all of the materials for reuse (a hub in New York is coming soon).

Bigger picture:

This will be the companies third spoke, doubling its total recycling capacity in North America to a total of 22,000 tons per year. Eventually, Li-Cycle will need to build a hub out in the western US to convert that shredded mixture into the lithium carbonate, cobalt sulfate, and nickel sulfate needed to make more batteries. Perhaps that will be announced shortly after the company goes public later this year.

Read the press release here.

US-based refiner, Phillips 66, has awarded EPC firm, Worley, with a front-end engineering design (FEED) services contract to convert one of its refineries into a renewable fuels complex.

Bringing you up to speed:

It was last August when Phillips 66 told the world that it's planning on renewing its refinery near San Francisco, CA. Since then, we've seen the company increase its renewable production in the U.K. and other refiners (like Valero) make similar announcements.

The details:

Phillips 66 is looking to produce up to 650 million gallons per year of renewable fuels at this site from "used cooking oils, fats, greases, and vegetable oils". To make that happen, Worley will be performing all the detailed engineering that comes with new pre-treatment units, repurposed hydrocracking units, and everything in between. The plant is expected to be up and running here in a few years.

Read the press release here.