Chemical Engineering February 2018 - 5

Chementator
New process converts refinery offgas
into gasoline
Feed pre-treatment
Modus reactors
Regeneration
Product recovery
Edited by:
Gerald Ondrey
RE-FREE MAGNETS
Catalyst
regen. system
DCU
offgas
(optional)
Regen.
Modular
separations
unit
FCC
offgas
A
Feed
pre-treatment
process technology that upgrades
offgas from petroleum refineries
has been commercialized by Siluria
Technologies Inc. (San Francisco,
Calif.; www.siluria.com) and Wood
(Aberdeen, Scotland; www.woodplc.com).
According to Siluria, the new Modus technology's
ability to chemically convert refinery
offgases into high-quality gasoline
products is an industry first. Other technologies
to treat offgases involve more complex
purification and cryogenic separation
steps that result in products that can present
logistical or economical challenges to
the petroleum refinery.
The Modus process (diagram) converts
light olefins contained in the offgas from
refinery operations, such as a fluid catalytic
cracker (FCC) or a delayed coker unit
(DCU), into a gasoline blendstock. In the
Modus process, offgas is pre-treated using
compression and simple guard beds. It is
then fed to a reaction system, which oligomerizes
the offgas' olefin content into longer
hydrocarbon chains. This reactor system,
which can include three to five reactors, depending
on the desired capacity, consists
of parallel adiabatic fixed-bed reactors that
contain a proprietary catalyst. The reactors
run continuously in a swing or cyclic mode,
meaning that one reactor can be kept offline
to regenerate the catalyst while the others
operate in swing mode. Since the Modus
catalyst was specially designed for compatibility
with offgas streams, the technology is
simple to integrate into most refinery settings.
The Modus process can also result in
reduced overall site emissions, since combustion
of unsaturated offgas components
is no longer necessary.
In tests at Siluria's pilot facilities, the process
has been shown to produce liquid
product output of several gallons per day.
Siluria and Wood used this pilot system to
develop the commercialized modular engineering
design package. The partners
are now in discussion with multiple refining
companies and plan to commence preFEED
(front-end engineering design) studies
in the first half of 2018.
Return to
fuel gas
system
Gasoline
blendstock
LPG
Tetrataenite (L10-FeNi) is a
promising alternative to rareearth-
(RE) based magnets
due to its favorable magnetic
properties, such as a high
uniaxial magnetic anisotropy
and saturation magnetic-flux
density. Compared to other
non-RE
alternatives,
such
as Nd-Fe-B and Sm-Fe-N,
which have a low thermal
resistance, L10-FeNi has a
Curie point of ≥550°C, which
is higher than conventional
magnets. However, L10FeNi
has only been found
naturally in trace amounts
in meteorites, so efforts to
make the highly ordered alloy
have been underway. Now, a
Japanese collaboration, led
by Denso Corp. (Aichi; www.
denso.com), with support of
the New Energy and Industrial
Technology Development Organization
(NEDO; Kawasaki;
www.nedo.go.jp), has succeeded
in synthesizing highpurity
L10-FeNi for the first
time, as reported in a recent
issue of Scientific Reports.
The researchers developed a
technique for ordering atoms
in an alloy called nitrogen insertion
and topotactic extraction
(NITE). In this method,
the ordered arrangement of
Fe and Ni, with nitriding as
the trigger, is combined with
(Continues on p. 8)
Startup for a demonstration plant to process three metals
A
ustralian Mines (Perth;
https//:australianmines.com.
au) has started operating a
demonstration cobalt-nickelscandium
processing plant that will
process ore from the company's
Sconi and Flemington projects into
commercial-grade samples.
The company's flagship Sconi
project, located in the mining center
of Greenvale in Queensland, is
based on an estimated average
production of 3,000 metric tons
per year (m.t./yr) of cobalt sulfate,
24,420 m.t./yr of nickel sulfate and
77 m.t./yr of scandium oxide for
the first 20 years. The Sconi project
can produce the raw materials
required in a Tesla Model S battery
pack cathode, which is comprised
of 80% Ni and 15% Co.
The Flemington project, located
370 km west of Sydney in New South
Wales, is a direct continuation of the
Sunrise Project under development
by Clean TeQ Holdings Ltd., with the
two projects separated only by a tenement
boundary. The Flemington project
has an estimated 89 million m.t.
of ore at an expected average feed
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
FEBRUARY 2018
grade of 0.11% Co, 0.80% Ni and
about 0.011% Sc.
The demonstration plant uses a
conventional pressure acid-leach
front-end to dissolve the metals into
solution. It includes a solid-liquid separation
and standard solvent extraction
and sulfate crystallization back-end to
separate out the Co, Ni and Sc to produce
final products. With a throughput
capacity of 2,200 kg/d of ore, the
plant can deliver a weekly output of
67 kg of cobalt sulfate (CoSO4
500 kg of nickel sulfate (NiSO4
.7H2O),
.6H2O)
and 8 kg of scandium oxide (Sc2O3).
5
http://www.siluria.com http://www.woodplc.com http://www.denso.com http://www.nedo.go.jp http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering February 2018

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