Breakthrough in research and development of key catalysts for ethylene cracking

The core equipment of the cracking unit is a hydrogenation reactor. The acetylene in the cracked gas is hydrogenated to ethylene through a carbon two pre-hydrogenation catalyst. Due to the difficulty of developing hydrogenation catalysts before carbon dioxide, domestic devices have long relied on imports.

The domestic C2 pre-hydrogenation catalyst has been successfully applied in the 800,000-ton / year ethylene plant of Sichuan Petrochemical, and the effect is better than the original German catalyst used in the plant. Daqing Petrochemical can save more than 2 million yuan of outsourcing funds every year after applying domestic agents.

A few days ago, news came from China Petroleum Daqing Petrochemical Company No. 1 Chemical Plant (hereinafter referred to as "No. 1 Chemical Plant"): The industrial application project of the carbon dioxide pre-hydrogenation catalyst PEC-21 in the 270,000-ton / year ethylene plant was awarded China After the first prize of petroleum science and technology invention, he also won the Daqing Petrochemical Science and Technology Progress Award, filling the national technological gap.

In recent years, Daqing Petrochemical Company's No. 1 Chemical Plant has combined with actual production, increased scientific and technological invention and innovation, and completed a number of major scientific research projects that have broken through production bottlenecks. Last year, it tapped potential to increase efficiency by 238 million yuan.

"As the leader of the Daqing Petrochemical Chemical Zone, the road to scientific and technological innovation of our plant is still very long, and the task is still very arduous." Said Wei Tao, director of the first chemical plant.

The core equipment of the cracking unit is a hydrogenation reactor. The acetylene in the cracked gas is hydrogenated to ethylene through a carbon two pre-hydrogenation catalyst. Due to the difficulty in developing hydrogenation catalysts for C2, domestic similar devices have long relied on imports.

Since 2007, the China Petroleum and Chemical Research Institute has cooperated with Daqing Petrochemical to complete the development of small and medium-sized catalysts. In April 2017, Process Director Liu Quanfu created a new process for the rapid and stable start-up of the C2 hydrogenation unit.

The successful start-up of the device marked the successful development and application of the domestic C2 pre-hydrogenation catalyst, which achieved the breakthrough of CNPC in this technical field from scratch, and also announced that the C2 pre-hydrogenation catalyst had achieved localization.

At present, the domestic carbon two pre-hydrogenation catalyst has been successfully applied in the 800,000-ton / year ethylene plant of Sichuan Petrochemical, and the effect is better than that of the original German catalyst used in the plant. Daqing Petrochemical can save more than 2 million yuan of outsourcing funds every year after applying domestic agents.

The chemical plant's 270,000-ton / year ethylene plant has a total of 5 cracking furnaces, and the main raw materials for processing are naphtha and hydrogenated tail oil. Because the crackers are all equipped with bottom burners, it is difficult to balance the temperature of the furnace tube outlet. Although the existing ethylene cracking production process uses DCS for routine control, it has not fully utilized the calculation potential of DCS.

How to reduce the damage to the furnace tube while ensuring the yield of ethylene is a problem that Liu Quanfu is constantly thinking about. By combining the idea of ​​human-like intelligent control, he creatively designed and developed the advanced control system of the cracking furnace, which realized a "seamless" connection with the existing DCS system, which not only improved the yield of diene, but also reduced the energy consumption of the device. Increased income by 4.5815 million yuan.

Propane is a high-quality raw material for ethylene production. Although it is "highly valuable", it is always limited by production conditions. During the cracking process, it has been mixed with other raw materials. Due to the different cracking temperatures between the raw materials, mixed cracking often makes the cracking depth of propane insufficient, resulting in a lower ethylene yield.

Zhou Wei, the director of the cracking workshop, organized technical personnel to conduct multiple studies, carried out thousands of simulation calculations on various parameters, and used advanced simulation software to establish the mechanism model of the cracking furnace and explore and optimize the best process conditions for cracking propane alone In order to improve the ethylene yield and extend the operating cycle of the cracking furnace.

At present, the propane raw material of Daqing Petrochemical First Chemical Plant has been cracked separately, and the operating parameters of the cracking furnace are stable. Calculated based on the cracking furnace feed volume of 15 tons / hour and annual operation of 8,000 hours, the economic benefit reaches 46.44 million yuan per year.

"We have always focused on the cultivation of scientific and technological talents, while accumulating advanced technology, we encourage technicians to find more technical information and write scientific papers, which has laid a solid foundation for scientific and technological innovation." Wang Wei, Secretary of the Party Committee of the First Chemical Plant. (Zhang Jingxia Wang Sixuan)