Modern Petrochemical Technology

Methods, Manufacturing and Applications

Santi Kulprathipanja, James E. Rekoske, Daniel Wei, Robert V. Slone, Trung Pham, Chunqing Liu

• Publisher: Wiley-VCH
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9783527345229
• eBook ISBN: 9783527818174
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Modern Petrochemical Technology

A text that explores the essence of petrochemicals and petrochemical technology

Modern Petrochemical Technology: Methods, Manufacturing and Applications is a comprehensive resource that provides an overview of the uses for common petrochemical building blocks, a review of the marketplaces, and offers a survey of the technology used to make the key petrochemical building blocks. The book contains both critical information the technologies used to produce petrochemicals, how the various petrochemicals are applied in industry, and provides illustrative examples and problems designed to reinforce the learning about the basic science, engineering, and use of petrochemicals.

The book explores three seprate petrochemical building block—olefin complexes, aromatic complexes and synthesis gas complexes—and examines the "interconnected" nature of these building blocks. The authors also include information on the olefins productions using steam cracking, paraffin dehydrogenation, and methanol to olefins technologies and describes various methods, commercial processes to produce aromatics such as benzene, toluene and xylene, and much more. This important book:

• Offers a guide to the critical information on petrochemical producing technologies
• Includes material on various petrochemicals from the industrial point-of-view
• Explores the separation processes, membrane technology, absorption technology, liquid-liquid extraction, and more
• Contains material from a team of noted experts
• Provides a survey of examples of commercialization applications of petrochemicals

Written for chemical engineers, chemists in industry, membrane scientists, and process engineers, Modern Petrochemical Technology provides an overview of markets and uses for common petrochemical building blocks as well as includes a survey of the technology used to make the key petrochemical building blocks.

Section IV
Industrial Separation

7
Adsorption

7.1 Principle of Adsorption

Adsorption process consists of two main pathways: adsorption and desorption. Adsorption is the process whereby a feed gas or feed liquid components adsorb at the surface of a microporous solid. The mixture of adsorbed feed components is called the “adsorbate,” and the microporous solid is called the “adsorbent.” Adsorption is dictated by the characteristics of the adsorbate and adsorbent interaction. If a certain species A has a greater affinity for the adsorbent than another species B in the mixture, the preferentially adsorbed species can in principle be separated from the other molecules in the gas or liquid mixture. Desorption is the process whereby the adsorbate is removed or recovered from adsorbent so that the adsorbent is available for reuse in the next cycle in the process. In gas-phase adsorption, the adsorbed material is most often removed by changing the temperature and/or the pressure of the system along with a carrier or sweeper gas. For liquid systems, a solvent must be found that preferentially displaces the desired product species from the adsorbent. The solvent that displaces the desired product from adsorbent is called “desorbent.” Characteristics of desorption depend on specific interactions of desorbent with both the adsorbent and adsorbate. It is these interactions that dictate and complicate the chemistry of adsorption. However, because of the significant number of possible combinations of adsorbents and desorbents, there are few reasons why any two or more components cannot be separated by adsorption. The desorbent itself should be easily separated from the product in another separation step, usually distillation. This chapter will highlight the impact of adsorption technology for two industrial applications: impurity removal and liquid bulk separation.

There are two types of adsorption, chemical adsorption (chemisorption) and physical adsorption (physisorption). Chemisorption takes place when an adsorbed component reacts chemically with the adsorbent. Desorption or recovery of the adsorbed product is generally difficult or not possible. This type of adsorption is generally used for trace impurities’ removal from liquid hydrocarbon or natural gas. Because of the nature of the chemical interaction between adsorbent and adsorbate, the adsorbent is not regenerable. On the other hand, physisorption does not involve chemical reaction between adsorbate and adsorbent. With this type of adsorption, the adsorbate is adsorbed through interaction with the adsorbent by electrostatic or van der Waals forces. In liquid physisorption, the adsorbate can be desorbed by a desorbent as mentioned earlier. In gas-phase separation, the adsorbate can be recovered by raising the temperature, reducing the partial pressure of a component, or in some cases, by using a vapor-phase desorbent. This type of adsorption is generally used for bulk liquid or gas-phase separation. Liquid adsorption will be the main subject of this chapter’s discussion. This is because bulk liquid adsorption has a great impact in refining and petrochemical separations. To demonstrate the impact of bulk liquid-adsorptive separation, two industrial hydrocarbon separation technologies, the UOP Parex™ and UOP MX Sorbex™ processes, will be discussed at the end of the chapter.

7.2 Adsorbents

An adsorbent is typically a solid porous material that allows molecules of a gas or liquid mixture to adhere to its surface, and this process is called adsorption. In separation processes via adsorption, the role of the adsorbent is to provide a large surface area for the adsorption of certain molecules. The strength with which these molecules are bonded to the surface is determined by the nature of the interaction between the molecule and the surface of the adsorbent. Adsorbents are made from many types of materials such as zeolites, silica gel, activated alumina, activated clay, polymeric resin, and activated carbon. General examples of adsorbent applications are listed in Table 7.1. The selection of adsorbents is dictated by the physical and chemical characteristics of adsorbents.

As shown in Table 7.1, zeolites are used in industrial bulk-scale separations such as xylene separation and separation of n-paraffins from i-paraffins. Zeolites are microporous crystalline aluminosilicate minerals with pores of uniform size from 3 to 10 Å, which are uniquely determined by the unit structure of the crystal. These pores will completely exclude molecules that are larger than their diameter. In contrast, activated carbon, activated alumina, silica gel, and activated clay do not possess an ordered crystal structure and consequently the pores are nonuniform. The distribution of the pore diameters within these ads...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Preface
• Section I: Introduction
• Section II: Olefins and Synthesis Gas
• Section III: Aromatics
• Section IV: Industrial Separation
• Index
• End User License Agreement