Meeting Report 23rd Annual Saudi–Japan Symposium ‘‘Catalysts in Petroleum Refining and Petro- chemicals’’, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; December 2–3, 2013 Abdullah M. Aitani Published online: 4 January 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 1 Introduction More than 110 scientists, engineers, catalyst experts and researchers from Japan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the Czech Republic, and the UK participated in the 2-day symposium on refining and petrochemical catalysts held on December 2–3, 2013 at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Min- erals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The annual sym- posium was jointly organized by KFUPM, the Japan Petroleum Institute (JPI), and Japan Cooperation Center, Petroleum (JCCP) to discuss latest advances in catalysts for refining and chemical processing. At this year’s sympo- sium, there are 18 presentations in 6 sessions featuring papers on gasoline upgrade, hydrodesulfurization (HDS), fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), catalytic olefins, dehydro- genation, recycling, alkylation, catalyst characterization, mechanism and polymerization catalysts. The following is a brief report on the topics covered by the symposium. Full papers can be accessed via www.kfupm.edu.sa/catsymp. 2 Session 1. Gasoline Upgrade (Chaired by Dr. Hamid Al-Megren, KACST) Mr. Yuji Saka of Cosmo Oil Company discussed tech- niques for octane number enhancement in FCC gasoline and catalytic activity improvement. Deep HDS of FCC gasoline is one of the most important techniques to meet the regulation, but the issue is the decrease of octane number (RON) of FCC gasoline. Therefore, it is also important to enhance the octane number of FCC gasoline to meet the regulation. The techniques for octane number enhancement in FCC gasoline were examined using a developed FCC catalyst. A new matrix component was used to improve catalytic activity while inhibiting octane number decrease compared to conventional techniques. Dr. Sachio Asaoka of JCCP/KFUPM reviewed nano- porous hybrid catalysts using Pd/nanosized (defined as 5–50 nm and referred to as ns) Al 2 O 3 /H-Beta zeolite for isomerization of naphtha. Applying the isomerization cat- alyst with the nanometer-scale design was examined for n-heptane. The developed catalyst, Pd/ns Al 2 O 3 /H-beta zeolite, was effective for the isomerization of both n-hex- ane and n-heptane, but n-heptane was more easily decomposed in comparison with n-hexane. However, improved high activity and selectivity were also obtained in n-heptane case by removal of residual chlorine from the catalyst, which decreased the number of acid sites acting as cracking sites formed by residual chlorine on ns Al 2 O 3 . 3 Session 2. Desulfurization/FCC (Chaired by Prof. Atsushi Muramatsu, Tohoku University) Dr. Yoshiyuki Nagayasu of JX Nippon Oil & Energy Company focused on the development of a simulator to predict the life of desulfurization agents in fuel cells (FC). Fuel desulfurization at ambient conditions is essential for stationary FC systems in order to prevent deactivation of the reforming catalysts. The desulfurization agents must be capable of reducing the sulfur concentration in fuels to extremely low levels (below 20 ppb by mass) for a period of at least 10 years to be of practical use. A kinetic model for adsorption of sulfur compounds by the agents was developed and applied for predicting the service life of A. M. Aitani (&) Center for Refining & Petrochemicals, KFUPM, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia e-mail: maitani@kfupm.edu.sa 123 Catal Surv Asia (2014) 18:50–53 DOI 10.1007/s10563-013-9163-6