Need

YPF, the Seeker for this Innocentive scouting challenge, is seeking on-site solutions to reduce, reuse, valorize, treat, or otherwise manage spent caustic generated in one of its refineries.

Successful solutions will need to demonstrate technical feasibility, economic attractiveness, and a clear path toward industrial implementation, while reducing environmental impact, operational risk, and management costs.

Solvers are required to demonstrate that they have sufficient technical validation for their proposed solution, along with a clear pathway toward industrial implementation in a refinery environment. Where implementation depends on third parties, those parties must have demonstrable industrial execution capacity.

Collaboration Opportunity

This is a Scouting Challenge seeking a partner or supplier to provide systems and expertise to solve YPF’s business challenge; the Solver is invited to submit a written proposal to be evaluated by YPF with the goal of establishing a collaborative partnership, including running a conceptual engineering study potentially followed by full implementation. YPF evaluation will consider technical feasibility, economic attractiveness, and a clear path towards implementation.

The Challenge offers an award of a potential paid conceptual engineering study with a budget of $20,000 USD. This pilot could enable the formalization of an agreement with the winning Solver and support progress toward full-scale implementation.

Submissions should be non-confidential. By submitting, Solvers grant YPF the right to review and evaluate their submission for the purposes of this Challenge.

If a future collaboration is pursued, YPF may require specific intellectual property, confidentiality, and commercial arrangements to be agreed between the parties.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on October 25th, 2026.

Please review the later Participation Guidance section before submitting a proposal.

Log in or register your interest to start collaborating and scouting!

Seeker/Eligibility

YPF is an energy company operating refinery processes that generate spent caustic from hydrocarbon sweetening operations.

Submissions will only be accepted from organizations, including: companies, institutions, research centers, multinational companies, technology providers, universities, consultancies, or industrial consortia. Individual solvers or standalone teams without the capacity to implement or scale a real solution are not eligible.

Solvers should demonstrate sufficient technical validation for their proposed solution, along with a clear pathway toward industrial implementation in a refinery environment. Where implementation depends on third parties, those parties must have demonstrable industrial execution capacity.

Employees of YPF are ineligible to receive an award for this Challenge.

Challenge

Background

YPF’s Refinería Luján de Cuyo includes hydrocarbon sweetening processes in the Merox FCC II, Merichem Nafta, and Merichem JP units, as well as different caustic treaters for LPG and naphtha. Sweetening is used to remove or transform sulfur compounds present in hydrocarbon streams such as LPG, naphtha, and kerosene in order to improve product quality and meet commercial specifications.

During this sweetening process, caustic soda (NaOH) absorbs sulfur compounds and gradually loses reactivity, forming reaction products and becoming spent caustic. Once this occurs, it can no longer efficiently remove contaminants and must be replaced with fresh soda to maintain process continuity and efficiency.

In addition, periodic recausticizing or realkalization operations in the kerosene sweetening reactor, carried out approximately every two months, generate approximately 60 m³ in volume of spent caustic per recausticizing event. These volumes are included in the estimated monthly figures below.

All spent caustic streams are blended in the same storage tanks before being sent for treatment and disposal. The current maximum operational storage capacity is 290 m³, across two tanks of 100 m³ and 190 m³.

Spent caustic generation varies significantly over time. It has averaged approximately 228 tons per month, but typically ranges between 150 and 300 tons per month, and the average should not be treated as a fixed reference.

After storage, the spent caustic is collected by truck, with a capacity of up to 20 tons per load, and sent to a third-party cement company, where it is managed through a rotary kiln process. Separated hydrocarbons are recovered for reprocessing. Collections are not scheduled daily; their frequency is adjusted according to accumulated volume and operational needs, and transport capacity is not a limiting factor.

This management model creates significant transport, logistics, and disposal costs; temporary storage constraints; dependence on third parties; environmental risks associated with handling and transport; and operational challenges linked to inventory accumulation within the refinery. The current annual cost exceeds USD 500,000.

Spent Caustic Composition

The spent caustic is a variable alkaline aqueous waste stream generated from LPG, naphtha, and kerosene caustic treating units within the refinery. As operating conditions, feedstocks, and unit performance vary over time, the exact composition is not constant and should be considered variable.

In general, the stream may contain:

• Residual sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in an alkaline aqueous solution
• Sodium salts derived from hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans, naphthenic acids, and other sulfur-containing compounds (e.g., sulfides, mercaptides, and naphthenates)
• Disulfides generated primarily through Merox treatment processes
• Entrained hydrocarbons originating from LPG, naphtha, and kerosene streams
• Water-soluble cobalt phthalocyanine catalyst residues used in Merox treating units.

Solvers should consider that both the concentration and relative distribution of these components may fluctuate over time. YPF is therefore particularly interested in technologies that are robust and capable of handling variations in feed composition under real refinery operating conditions. Additional characterization data may be discussed with shortlisted Solvers during subsequent evaluation stages.

The Challenge

YPF is seeking solutions that can reduce or eliminate the disposal of spent caustic as hazardous waste and instead enable its reuse, regeneration, valorization, treatment, or integration into other industrial processes within YPF's facilities and operations.

Solutions may be partial or scalable, but they must address the refinery context.

The intended outcome is to reduce the volume sent to final disposal, lower associated costs, and minimize environmental and operational risks. Proposals must demonstrate a meaningful reduction against the current disposal route. Approaches similar to the current disposal route, or those offering only marginal gains, are not of interest.

Site Constraints

YPF is only interested in on-site solutions for this challenge. Solutions requiring off-site treatment or hybrid schemes are outside the scope of this opportunity.

The proposed solution must be installed and operated within the refinery boundaries and integrated with refinery operations. Available space is not considered a limiting factor at this stage, and Solvers may assume that sufficient area and safety protections can be allocated for the proposed technology, provided the submission details overall compliance with general refinery safety, operational, and environmental requirements.

The refinery can accommodate facilities designed for the safe handling, storage, treatment, and containment of corrosive and hazardous materials in accordance with applicable industrial standards and regulations.

Solution Requirements

Must-haves

Solutions must describe and justify their technical, operational, and economic approach for the valorization, reuse, treatment, or reduction of spent caustic generated in the refinery. They must also consider the site constraints.

Solutions should include the following sections, where relevant:

1. Technology and scope: Technology proposed, principle of operation, treated streams, scope and exclusions
2. On-site implementation and integration: Conceptual descriptions and diagram/layout of the proposed solution, implementation scheme, main equipment, infrastructure, utilities, interfaces, storage, or pretreatment needs
3. Inputs, outputs and valorization route: Main input and output streams, expected products or by-products, possible use or destination, market or reuse route, and preliminary mass balance if applicable
4. Operation and support requirements: Operating conditions, maintenance needs, staffing, and support required from YPF or the provider
5. Feasibility, risks and compliance: Robustness to variations in feed composition, material compatibility, and containment; technical, safety, environmental and regulatory feasibility; key risks and mitigation measures
6. Economic and environmental impact: Preliminary CAPEX/OPEX, expected savings versus current disposal pathways, and estimated environmental and operational impact
7. Experience and references: Previous applications, operating scale, results achieved, clients, references or technical documentation. For earlier stage technologies, provide laboratory and pilot validation data
8. Implementation roadmap: Main stages, estimated timing, milestones, pilot requirements and path to full-scale implementation.

Out of Scope / Things to Avoid

- Proposals submitted by individuals

- Proposals from organizations that can not demonstrate the technical, operational, and financial capability to execute a pilot implementation

Solutions with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 4-9 are invited. Technologies below TRL 4 will not be considered.

This Scouting Challenge has the following features:

1. YPF will evaluate your submission to determine their interest for further business and collaboration discussions, including a potential USD 20,000 contract to perform a conceptual engineering study of its proposed solution.
2. The terms of the contract (including scope of work, tasks and duration) for any winner will be determined directly with YPF. The monetary value of any additional contract or full execution project will vary depending on the amount of work to be delivered and the agreed upon time frame.

Your Submission

Please log in and register your interest to complete the submission form.

The submitted proposals must be written in English or Spanish and can include:

1. Participation type – you will first be asked to confirm that you are participating in this challenge, as a Solver (Organization).
2. Solution Level - the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of your proposal.
3. Solution Overview - Please describe ALL the technical details of your solution and how they address the Solution Requirements, such as the technology proposed, principle of operation, treated streams, scope and exclusions (up to 500 words).
4. On-site implementation and integration - Please share the conceptual descriptions and diagram/layout of the proposed solution, implementation scheme, main equipment, infrastructure, utilities, interfaces, storage, or pretreatment needs. (up to 500 words).
5. Inputs, outputs and valorization route - Please specify main input and output streams, expected products or by-products, possible use or destination, market or reuse route, and preliminary mass balance if applicable (up to 500 words).
6. Operation and support requirements - Please share the operating conditions, maintenance needs, staffing, and support required from YPF or the provider (up to 500 words).
7. Feasibility, risks and compliance - Please describe the technical, safety, environmental and regulatory feasibility; key risks and mitigation measures (up to 500 words).
8. Economic and environmental impact - Please specify preliminary CAPEX/OPEX, expected savings versus current disposal, and estimated environmental and operational impact (up to 500 words).
9. Experience – Please share proven experience in implementing this type of technology in the past. Any further expertise, previous applications, operating scale, results achieved, clients, references or technical documentation (up to 500 words).
10. Implementation roadmap - Please describe main stages, estimated timing, milestones, pilot requirements and path to full-scale implementation (up to 500 words).
11. Executive Summary - Describe your solution briefly (up to 500 words).

Participation Guidance

1. Submission Close Date: Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on October 26th, 2026.
2. Late submissions: Late submissions will not be considered.
3. Multiple submissions, One Maximum: In case of multiple submissions by the same Solver, only one submission – the final one submitted – will be considered. Any other submissions will be deleted prior to evaluation.
4. Submission form and attachments: Your submission will be evaluated by the evaluation team first reviewing the information and content you have submitted at the submission form, with attachments used as additional context to your form submission. Submissions relying solely on attachments will receive less attention from the evaluation team.
5. Evaluation notification steps: After the Challenge submission close date, YPF will review and select the winning solutions according to the timeline in the Challenge header. Everyone who submits a proposal will be notified about the status of their submissions.
6. Use of AI: Please note that any submissions produced solely with generative AI are not of interest.
7. Learn more: Find out more about participation in Innocentive Challenges.