Offshore staff

SASOLBURG, South Africa -- Sasol Technology and Avantium Technologies will pursue research collaboration in the area of Fischer-Tropsch chemistry to convert coal and natural gas to liquid fuels. Under the collaboration, scientists of Sasol and Avantium Technologies will work together to develop new catalyst technologies to optimize Sasol's production of liquid fuels from coal or natural gas.

Avantium specializes in experimental methodologies to conduct parallel experiments on a small scale and at a high speed to increase productivity and to allow myriad experimental conditions.

Statistical techniques are applied to direct the experimental program into the most promising areas and to extract knowledge from the data that can be used to optimize industrial processes.

"We are confident that the combined efforts of both teams in these research programs will add value and lead to innovative new catalyst technologies for Sasol. Our skills set significantly reduces the time-to-market of new products and processes and also improves the economics and success rates of research," says Tom van Aken, CEO of Avantium Technologies.

4/17/2007