Chemicals & Materials

Biomass has the potential to supply significant quantities of transportation fuels as increasing worldwide demand will place significant pressure on the supply. In the US, increasing imports of energy could make any imbalance especially acute, as has been demonstrated in the past. Additionally,...

Refinery crude units often process variety of feedstocks. If properties of the feed entering the crude unit are not precisely known, it is difficult to predict how changes in the tower operating conditions will affect properties of the products. Similarly, if on-line analyzers are not available, it...

Process Automation ideas and technologies have been used sporadically for decades. However, in US refineries, automation technologies are still relatively rare. Critics of the technology will often point to complexity, high upkeep, and difficulty in changing the status quo as stumbling blocks to...

Underlying feedstock prices that derive from either natural gas or crude oil represent a high percentage of the operating expense related to the production of ethylene for a vast majority of the global ethylene market. Historically, while steam crackers in West Europe and Asia are mainly naphtha-...

The demand for light olefins is continuing to rise at over 3% per annum. While ethylene production is expected to be addressed by the construction of new ethane crackers, mostly sited in the Middle East, only 3% of propylene production can be attributed to on-purpose propylene technology. As the...

Abstract: Corrosion, blockage, fouling, and mechanical/thermal overload are the key degradation mechanisms that operators need to control to avoid premature failure of their aluminum plate fin heat exchangers. The paper will describe these degradation mechanisms as well as how to incorporate finite...

Abstract: This paper describes the investigative tools and techniques, learning’s, and logistical challenges faced by an international team assembled to uncover the source of surface tears in newly manufactured 6061 aluminum alloy pipe elbows. The cold box, with its complex piping layout, and a...

Borealis' cracker in Stenungsund, Sweden was a very early adopter of APC for olefin plants. Part of Exxon's early 80's roll out of APC based on Honeywell's PMX process computer on top of a TDC2000 DCS the plant got over a few years state of the art furnace, compressor and distillation control. In...

NEW CONTINUOUS COKING PROCESS A new coking process can accept resid feed from the conventional resid heater in a coking plant and continuously discharge vapor and dry petroleum coke particles. The process promotes a rapid recovery of volatiles from the resid enabling recovery of more volatiles. It...

In the 2007 turnaround at the BASF FINA PETROCHEMICAL L.P. Ethylene Steam Cracker, severe damage was discovered in the cooling tower to process exchangers. Over 41 exchangers had been replaced or required total tube bundle replacement within the first seven years of operation. Several of the units...