Chemical Engineering September 2014 - 20

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The Dow Chemical Company
Newsfront
CH4/H2
Butadiene
Propylene
Ethane
Ethylene ~80%
~11/4 lb/lb C2=
4CLEANING
Figure 3. A comparison
of the products of naphtha
cracking versus ethane
cracking with the same amount of ethylene
production illustrates that some co-products
of naphtha cracking are lost with the shift
towards the use of lighter feedstocks
4REPAIR/RETUBING
4DECOMMISSIONING
TPC Group states that " The global
market will need on-purpose butadiene
to meet future demand, and
in order to satisfy that demand,
multiple on-purpose butadiene
plants in various regions of the
world will be required. " Desdin goes
on to say, " Since the announcement,
there has been a significant amount
of interest in the technology. UOP is
currently in the process of creating
a licensing package for the OXO-D
technology, which will be available
to prospective licensees in the
fourth quarter of 2014. "
In the earlier stages of develop4FABRICATION
4BAKE-OUT
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TRANSPORT H
Contact us:
rfq@dunnheat.com
for more information
409-948-1704
281-337-1222
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Circle 19 on p. 76 or go to adlinks.che.com/50980-19
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ment is another technology partnership
focused on butadiene, also announced
in June 2014, by The Linde
Group (Pullach, Germany; www.
linde.com) and BASF SE (Ludwigshafen,
Germany; www.basf.com).
The two companies are collaborating
on the development and licensing
of an on-purpose route from
butane to butadiene via butenes.
For butene synthesis from butane,
BASF is contributing a high-yield
monolithic catalyst. In the presence
of a metal-oxide catalyst, those
butenes are then subsequently converted
via an oxydehydrogenation
step into butadiene. Although the
process is still quite new, progress to
commercialization is moving ahead,
with developments occurring at both
kilogram-scale and pilot-plant-scale
operations in Ludwigshafen (Chem.
Eng., July 2014, p. 14).
Last year, Wison Engineering Ltd.
(Shanghai; www.wison.com) introduced
its own on-purpose butadiene
20 ChemiCal engineering www.Chemengonline.Com September 2014
Naphtha
~15%
~5%
CH4/H2/lights
Fuel oil
Toluene
Benzene
Pygas
C5
Other C4
Butadiene
Propylene
~30%
~31/4 lb/lb C2=
Ethylene
technique, also based on oxidative
dehydrogenation principles (Chem.
Eng., June 2013, p. 15). With a proprietary
high-yield catalyst in its
arsenal and a process-design package
completed, Wison expects to
announce a license agreement for
commercial deployment of the technology
in the coming months.
Another on-purpose technology
developed in response to the
prevalence of lighter cracking
feedstocks and the associated reduction
in butadiene supply is the
butene-to-crude-butadiene process
(abbreviated BTcB), which was
introduced by Mitsubishi Chemical
Corp. (MCC; Tokyo, Japan;
www.m-kagaku.co.jp) at the 2014
American Institute of Chemical
Engineers (AIChE) Spring Meeting.
The BTcB process (Figure 4)
involves the oxidative dehydrogenation
of a C4 mixture to produce
1,3-butadiene in the presence of air,
steam and a very selective catalyst.
Yields are estimated to be 10-25%
higher than past butadiene-production
technologies, per MCC's evaluations.
Also, the catalyst achieves
a very long operational life without
the need for regeneration, says
the company. The reaction runs at
ambient pressure, and operating
temperatures are typically between
300 and 400°C. MCC also estimates
that this process involves up to 80%
less wastewater than past butadiene
technologies, decreasing the environmental
impact of operations.
The process is flexible enough
that all industrial C4 mixtures, inD
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http://www.m-kagaku.co.jp http://www.linde.com http://www.basf.com http://www.wison.com http://www.dunnheat.com http://adlinks.che.com/50980-19 http://www.Chemengonline.Com
Chemical Engineering September 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering September 2014
