Dr Detlef Kratz (President, Process Research & Chemical Engineering, BASF) will give a talk entitled ‘Driving Sustainability in the Chemical Industry’.
The talk will be followed by opportunities to network at an informal drinks reception.
About the talk
The challenges of sustainability to the chemical industry are becoming ever more evident, especially for a company as BASF with such a wide portfolio of products and technologies. From the perspective of BASF, the current starting point of nearly all our value chains is steam cracking of natural gas as well as steam reforming. This generates olefins, aromatics and hydrogen with which we then modify with a wealth of chemistries to generate a multitude of products. The downside is that due to the energy intensive nature of our technologies as well as from yield loss undesired CO2 is generated in significant amounts.
The talk covers current technologies in comparison to different future technologies that have the potential of reducing BASF’s carbon footprint. These include electrically heated steam cracking, water hydrolysis, and methane pyrolysis. Additionally, focus will be on a view on the thermodynamic considerations regarding the potential of these novel technological alternatives especially in the light of energy requirements. Their feasibility and economic viability on a megaton-per-year scale is crucial to fulfilling our company’s strategy to achieve CO2-neutral growth until 2030.
About the Speaker
Detlef Kratz was born in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1968 he moved to London, United Kingdom, where he lived until 1981. He studied Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg, Germany where he received his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1991. After spending one year as a postdoctoral research fellow at the California Institute of Technology, Los Angeles, United States he joined BASF in 1992. He has been appointed as President of Global Research in Chemicals – BASF corporate research unit since December 2018. His unit focuses on chemical engineering, pilot plant operations, inorganics, heterogeneous catalysis, and homogeneous catalysis.