Tuiana Shoinkhorova is a Senior Research Specialist at Dow Chemical Company. She completed her PhD at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), where her thesis focused on Formulation of Zeolite-based Catalysts for Hydrocarbon Processing.

PhD Research Overview

During her PhD at KAUST, Tuiana worked on zeolite‑based catalysts for methanol‑to‑hydrocarbons (MTH) and related hydrocarbon conversion processes. Most of her work focused on catalyst formulation and shaping, trying to understand how changes in acidity, binder composition, and reaction conditions affect activity, selectivity, stability, and coke formation.

A large part of the catalytic testing was carried out using Avantium’s Flowrence® reactors, mainly because the number of variables became too large for conventional single‑reactor work. The system allowed her to compare catalyst formulations under different pressures, temperatures, and reaction environments with efficiency and confidence.

Flowrence® in Her Research

One of the main challenges during Tuiana’s PhD was that small formulation changes could completely change catalyst behaviour. Even slight changes in binder content or zeolite acidity could significantly impact stability or selectivity. This resulted in a large number of catalyst formulations and operating conditions that needed to be tested.

Flowrence played a key role by allowing her to run several catalysts side‑by‑side under the same conditions and immediately determine whether an observed trend was real. This significantly reduced the time required for formulation optimisation and long‑term stability experiments.

She highlights that the biggest advantage of Flowrence was the speed of learning. During a PhD, ideas constantly need to be tested, and Flowrence made it possible to check them quickly instead of spending weeks on a single assumption.

Tuiana also appreciated the flexibility of the setup, which allowed her to work on multiple catalytic systems and switch between experiments depending on project priorities. The system handled high‑pressure experiments reliably while maintaining stable flow conditions across reactors, making catalyst comparison much easier, particularly during long time‑on‑stream studies where reproducibility is critical.

Flowrence allowed me to run several catalysts side‑by‑side under the same conditions and immediately see whether an observed trend was actually real. That saved a lot of time during formulation optimisation and long stability experiments.

Tuiana Shoinkhorova

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