Chemical Engineering March 2011 - 13

CHEMENTATOR
Improved ethylene-oxide scrubber design
can meet stringent regulations
mprovements in the design of ethylene
oxide (EtO) scrubbers made by The Clean
Air Group, Croll Reynolds Co. (Parsippany,
N.J.; www.croll.com) have helped users
meet increasingly stringent regulations
for EtO emissions, as well as meet tower
height restrictions. " Our designs have
achieved efficiencies of 99.99% or greater
for removal of ethylene oxide, compared to
99-99.9% with alternative technologies, "
says Carolyn Byszewski, manager of The
Clean Air Group.
I
The highly flammable and corrosive EtO
- the simplest epoxide - is used as a raw
material for manufacturing a range of personal
care products, as well as a sterilization
agent in healthcare settings. Environmental
regulations on EtO emissions from chemical
producers and sterilizers have tightened in
many areas because of EtO's carcinogenic
and teratogenic properties. To eliminate it,
EtO undergoes acid-catalyzed hydrolysis to
form ethylene glycol in a scrubber.
Croll Reynolds offers designs with efficient
tower packing that maximizes contact
between the contaminated gas and the
scrubbing liquid, as the downward-flowing,
scrubbing liquid meets the upward-flowing,
EtO-containing gas. The company's scrubber
designs allow hydrolysis to occur at
ambient (or lower) temperatures in the reactor
tank, which reduces the reactor tank
size and avoids interruption of the scrubbing
process.
Croll Reynolds has developed a continuous
split-column design that is capable of
meeting the strictest EtO regulations without
breaking local-zoning tower-height regulations.
The split-column tower makes use
of coordinated, automatic control valves to
allow lower-profile tower heights of below 25
ft, as opposed to 40-45 ft in a single-column
tower of equivalent efficiency. The company
has also invented proprietary reactor technology
to minimize back-mixing of unhydrolyzed
liquid with reacted material.
(Continued from p. 11)
is scheduled for completion in
June, 2012.
mhi's proprietary KS-1 solvent
will be used to recover Co2
from luegas released at the
fertilizer production process,
which uses natural gas as fuel.
The captured Co2 (99% purity)
will be used as feedstock for
urea synthesis from ammonia.
The KS-1 solvent was jointly
developed by mhi and Kansai
electric Power Co. (osaka,
Japan). The Co2 recovery plant
will utilize mhi's Km CDr process
(CE, January 2008, p. 12),
which captures approximately
90% of the Co2 from luegas.
Tecnimont iCB Pvt. ltd. (mumbai,
india; www.ticb.com) will
construct the plant.
CO2 capture
a new high-pressure process
for removing Co2 from natural
gas has been tested in a joint
(Continues on p. 14)
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Circle 30 on p. 62 or go to adlinks.che.com/35063-30
12 ChemiCal engineering www.Che.Com marCh 2011
http://www.croll.com http://www.ticb.com http://www.hexoloy.com http://adlinks.che.com/35063-30 http://www.Che.Com
Chemical Engineering March 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering March 2011
