Chemicals & Materials

Many similar safety incidents occur in ethylene plants throughout the world. While these should be well known to plant operators, our paper lists these more common safety incidents along with their root causes. We then discuss several less common safety incidents that have occurred: • Heater over-...

The trend of processing heavy and sour crude is resulting in 'fuel long' refineries which seek to export energy in the form of refinery fuel gas or are looking for other ways to extract value from the fuel gas system. There are common solutions that either are applicable to a few selected high-...

At approximately 10:15 p.m. on Sunday, May 17, 2009, there was a sudden and large hydrocarbon release from a main process pipe in the Ethylene Unit at the Sunoco Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania Refinery. The release found an ignition source at an operating process furnace within 2 seconds, resulting in a...

Koch Nitrogen, like every chemical plant, has a few rotating machines in the realm of critical where words like human safety, explosion, months to repair and plant stoppage are commonly used. In May of 2008, Koch Nitrogen commissioned a brand new 8100 rpm, 1500 hp turbo expander. This plant has 1...

The need for filtration systems in scrubbing units has been well documented. Filtration provides the benefits of reduced hot spots in the regenerator reboiler, reduced heat exchanger fouling and reduction of foaming in the absorbers. This paper discusses thin-cake candle filter technology that is...

A 19 KBPD commercial Catalytic Reforming Unit using a 4-bed stacked reactor for the production of BTX has been simulated. The underlying chemistry of Catalytic Reforming on noble metal-loaded acid catalysts is modeled by means of a computer-generated reaction network consisting of 50,000+...

Availability of pure olefin monomers is a key step in the production of polymers. These olefins are mainly produced by steam crackers. KataLeuna offers a wide range of catalysts and adsorbents to purify the various steam cracker cuts. This contribution will report on the latest catalyst...

Increased emphasis is being placed on renewable, sustainable, domestic forms of energy, including transportation fuels, at national, state and local levels. Successful deployment of alternative solutions to petroleum-based liquid fuels for the transportation industry is dependent upon technical,...

Reliable operation of an Olefin gas/liquid dehydrator requires careful attention to the integrity of the grid supporting the molecular sieve. Problems with retention of the sieve can stem from many points in the design, fabrication, and installation process for these assemblies. Two case studies...

The energy efficiency and throughput of pre-heat trains can be improved by using process integration and through fouling mitigation. In this paper we show how the approaches can be combined in a systematic way. If fouling behaviour is ignored the use of process integration can lead to revamps in...