OLI v12.5 gives process-industry leaders a concise package of big-value upgrades: it introduces sub-flowsheets, allowing engineers to build complex process models in modular pieces that can be reused across teams and assets. The release extends its MSE corrosion modeling to five widely used advanced alloys, enabling predictive materials selection and reducing costly corrosion risks. A major expansion of the chemistry database adds multi-component CO₂ systems, geothermal and nuclear waste chemistry and new data for battery-recycling and critical-mineral extraction. These capabilities empower users to simulate challenging systems—such as hydrate control in upstream gas, fouling and corrosion in refining, impurity limits for carbon capture transport, geothermal scaling and critical-materials recovery—with greater confidence. Together, they make v12.5 a strategic enabler: it turns rigorous chemistry into an enterprise-wide design tool, accelerates innovation and helps organizations operate safely and sustainably in the energy-transition era.
Pillar 1: Sub Flowsheet – Smarter Modeling, Enterprise Efficiency
What it is: Sub flowsheets introduce a hierarchical modeling approach, allowing complex process simulations to be broken into smaller, reusable sections. In practice, a team can develop a unit operation or sub-process model once and reuse it as a template in many flowsheets. It’s akin to having a “function library” for your process models.
Strategic Impact: Sub flowsheets directly address the scalability and collaboration challenges many enterprises face. Globally dispersed engineering teams can now share standardized model sections, ensuring that best practices are propagated company wide. The result is greater consistency and quality control in simulations (everyone uses the approved template) and significant time savings in building models. Faster model deployment means faster decision-making – critical when racing to evaluate a new opportunity or troubleshoot an operational issue. By simplifying model complexity, sub flowsheets also reduce the risk of errors and knowledge silos (new hires can more easily understand a modular model versus a single huge flowsheet).
ROI Example: Consider a chemical company rolling out a new production process across 5 plants. Without sub flowsheets, each plant’s engineering team might spend weeks configuring the same reaction and separation sections in their models, potentially introducing variability. With sub flowsheets, a central expert team provides a validated sub flowsheet for the core process. Each plant team simply plugs it in, tailoring only site-specific feeds. This not only saves engineering hours (labor cost reduction) but also ensures the rollout is done right the first time, avoiding costly design mistakes. One OLI client in upstream oil & gas observed that using sub flowsheet templates for standard water treatment units cut their model preparation time by over 50% while improving confidence in the results. In short, sub flowsheets turn simulation into a more efficient, repeatable enterprise process – a clear competitive advantage in today’s fast-paced project environment.
Pillar 2: New MSE Corrosion Alloys – Protecting Assets, Reducing Risk
What it is: OLI v12.5 expands its Mixed-Solvent Electrolyte (MSE) corrosion modeling to include five new alloys (S13Cr, S15Cr, S17Cr stainless steels, 316 stainless steel, and Alloy 625). These are materials widely used in demanding conditions (e.g. downhole tubulars, pipelines, heat exchangers) that previously had limited predictive data. Now, engineers can simulate corrosion rates and behaviors for these alloys under various conditions, using OLI’s rigorous thermodynamic-electrochemical framework.
Strategic Importance: Corrosion is a multi-billion-dollar problem across industries – unplanned outages, leaks, and failures can be catastrophic. By broadening the range of materials that can be virtually tested, OLI v12.5 enables companies to design for reliability and longevity from the outset. This pillar is all about risk reduction and safety improvement. For example, a power plant considering the use of Alloy 625 in a flue gas scrubber can model how that alloy will hold up to acid condensates over time. Or a geothermal project can check if switching to a 17Cr steel will significantly cut corrosion in brine fluids. Having these answers, pre-implementation can inform better capital decisions and maintenance planning. It’s a differentiator when bidding projects or assuring regulators and partners of your design’s robustness.
ROI Example: In refining and petrochemicals, material selection can dictate whether a unit runs for 5 years or 25 years. Suppose a refinery is debating upgrading an overhead system to stainless 316 to handle more acidic crudes. With OLI’s new corrosion data, they simulate that 316 will reduce corrosion by, say, 40% under expected conditions versus the current carbon steel – translating to fewer replacements and avoided downtime. The economic value of avoiding just one major unplanned shutdown (often millions of dollars lost per day in a large refinery) vastly outweighs the cost of simulation and upgraded materials. By providing accurate corrosion predictions for advanced alloys, v12.5 helps companies avoid failures and optimize their asset lifecycle strategies, which is pure ROI in terms of prevented loss and improved safety records. Moreover, it strengthens competitive positioning – companies that leverage OLI to validate their materials can instill greater confidence in stakeholders that their operations are resilient.
Pillar 3: New Chemistry Database Expansion – Enabling Innovation in Emerging Markets
What it is: OLI has long been known for its extensive chemistry databanks. Version 12.5 takes this further by adding a wide range of new species and reactions, specifically targeting key growth areas and pain points in modern industry. This includes new electrolytes and mixed-solvent data for CO2 Transportation (CO₂ + impurities), refined and accurate chemistries for geothermal brines (antimony, mercury compounds), expanded component coverage for battery recycling and critical minerals (cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements), and even niche additions for nuclear waste treatment (e.g. cesium, rubidium interactions) and advanced water treatment.
Strategic Importance: This pillar is about unlocking new applications and staying ahead of industry trends. As companies pivot toward energy transition and circular economy initiatives, they encounter chemistry that legacy simulation tools don’t handle well (or at all). OLI v12.5 fills those gaps, enabling firms to model processes at the cutting edge of technology. For instance, carbon capture, transportation, utilization and storage projects must deal with CO₂ streams that have oxygen, NOx, SOx, etc. – OLI’s updated database can rigorously handle those multi-component systems. Similarly, new ventures in lithium extraction or rare earth processing can leverage OLI’s expanded data (like solvent extraction isotherms for neodymium or cobalt complexes) to design efficient separation processes, whereas competitors might be guessing due to lack of data.
Being able to accurately simulate these emerging processes translates to first-mover advantage. Companies can innovate faster (because they trust their models to guide R&D), scale up with fewer surprises, and enter new markets with confidence. It also means fewer expensive pilot iterations – robust thermodynamic predictions reduce the trial-and-error in, say, formulating a process to remove antimony scaling in geothermal operations. In summary, OLI’s new chemistry breadth gives businesses the tools to tackle sustainability and innovation challenges head-on, which is a huge competitive differentiator in sectors where the winners will be those who master complex chemistry (think direct lithium extraction or CO₂ utilization).
ROI Example: Take the case of a mining company working on battery recycling. They need to maximize recovery of cobalt and nickel from spent batteries. OLI v12.5 includes updated models for cobalt and nickel solvent extraction equilibria and new extractants. By using these in simulation, the company designs a process that boosts cobalt yield by a few percentage points – which, in a high-volume recycling operation, could mean millions in additional recovered value annually. At the same time, they avoid over-dosing expensive chemicals because the model optimizes the sweet spot for pH and reagent usage. The return on modeling investment here is immediate: better process performance and lower operating cost. Similarly, in CCUTS, a power company can precisely determine impurity limits for CO₂ transport. This allows them to relax unnecessarily conservative specs or ensure safety, both of which have financial implications (either saving costs or avoiding liabilities). Across the board, having the right chemistry data means decisions are based on science, not guesswork, leading to more profitable and reliable outcomes.
Cross-Industry Impact Highlights
To ground these pillars in reality, here are a few quick examples of how v12.5 drives impact in different verticals:
- Upstream Oil & Gas: Better MEG (monoethylene glycol) modeling in gas production and improved sour gas corrosion prediction help minimize hydrate formation and extend asset life for wells and pipelines. One operator noted that with v12.5 they can simulate complex gas mixtures (H₂, CO, Ar with hydrocarbons) accurately, something they couldn’t do before – guiding them to optimize their hydrate inhibition strategy and avoid over-injection of chemicals.
- Refining: New chemistry like thiosulphuric acid and calcium malate means refiners can finally model certain fouling and scaling tendencies in their water and acid systems. Improved CDU overhead simulations and corrosion mitigation strategies lead to more efficient turnaround planning and crude blending optimization. In business terms, this can reduce downtime and allow processing of opportunity crudes that would otherwise be too risky.
- CCUTS (Carbon Capture, Transportation, Utilization & Storage): With v12.5’s data for CO₂ + impurity mixtures and magnesium carbonates, companies can ensure CO₂ transport and injection plans are robust, optimizing impurity specifications and assessing material compatibility before construction. Strategically, these de-risks CO₂ transport projects – an area where any failure could be very high profile. OLI’s tools give these projects a higher chance of success, which in a carbon-constrained world is a significant strategic win.
- Power Generation & Geothermal: Power producers, especially geothermal operators, benefit from being able to model antimony sulfide and mercury salt behavior, which translates to improved brine scaling predictions and reduced equipment failure risk. For geothermal, avoiding scaling means more uptime (revenue) and lower maintenance cost. For coal or biomass power with wet scrubbing, understanding mercury chemistry helps in meeting environmental regulations at optimized cost.
- Critical Materials (Battery Metals): The expanded coverage for elements like cobalt, nickel, lithium, and rare earths directly supports EV battery recycling and rare earth recovery efforts, enabling companies to design processes that maximize yield of these high-value materials. In terms of differentiation, a recycling firm using OLI v12.5 can outpace competitors by demonstrating higher recovery rates and more efficient use of reagents, backed by modeling. With surging demand for critical minerals, that’s a tangible market advantage.
- Nuclear Waste Management: v12.5’s inclusion of rubidium, cesium, and various mercury compounds helps organizations tasked with nuclear waste treatment to improve prediction of treatment outcomes and ensure safety compliance. For example, simulations can guide how to immobilize minor radioactive species or handle mercury contamination, potentially saving costly experiments and ensuring regulatory standards are met right first time.
Each of these examples underscores a common theme: better predictions lead to better decisions. By investing in OLI v12.5’s capabilities, companies are effectively investing in reducing uncertainty in their operations and projects. The payoff is seen in more efficient designs, fewer surprises (which are often expensive), and the ability to seize new opportunities (be it a tougher crude, a new battery recycling contract, or a more ambitious emissions target) with confidence.
Conclusions
OLI v12.5 represents a strategic enabler for any organization focused on operational excellence and innovation in the process industries. Its trio of innovations – modular sub flowsheet modeling, advanced corrosion insights, and unparalleled chemistry breadth – aligns perfectly with the pressures companies face today: to do more with less, to prolong asset life safely, and to pioneer sustainable solutions. Importantly, these features reinforce each other. For instance, new chemistries allow you to model that cutting-edge CO₂ transport process, sub flowsheets let you integrate that model enterprise-wide quickly, and the corrosion data ensures the materials you choose for it will last – together yielding a powerful competitive edge.
In an era where digital transformation is not just a buzzword but a necessity, OLI v12.5 provides practical tools to transform how engineering work is done. It bridges the gap between theoretical science and applied engineering, allowing decisions to be driven by rigorous simulation. Companies adopting v12.5 can expect to see improvements in project ROI through reduced design margins, fewer failure incidents, and faster project cycles – outcomes that speak to the bottom line. And beyond the numbers, it positions those companies as technology leaders, ready to face the challenges of the energy transition and Industry 4.0.
In summary, OLI v12.5 is more than a software release; it’s a catalyst for better business outcomes in any process-driven enterprise. Forward-thinking leaders should view it as an investment in resilience and innovation – one that will pay dividends in both the short term (through efficiency and cost savings) and the long term (through sustained competitive advantage and growth). Embracing these advanced modeling capabilities means being equipped to innovate faster, operate safer, and achieve the sustainability goals that are increasingly defining market success.