CB&I has been awarded a contract by Jinneng Science & Technology Co., for the license and engineering design of a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China.

The unit will use CB&I’s CATOFIN® technology to produce 900,000 metric tonnes of propylene per year. It will also utilise CATOFIN catalyst and heat generating material from CB&I’s catalyst partner, Clariant. Once the unit is complete, it will be the world’s largest single-train PDH unit.

CATOFIN dehydrogenation is a continuous process with cyclic reactor operation in which multiple reactors go through a controlled sequence of reaction and reheat/regeneration. During the hydrocarbon processing step, fresh feed and recycle feed (from an MTBE synthesis unit or isobutane dehydrogenation or C3 splitter bottoms for propane dehydrogenation) are vapourised by exchange with various process streams and then raised to reaction temperature in the charge heater.

The reactor effluent is routed through a high pressure steam generator, feed-effluent exchanger, and trim cooler to the compressor. The compressor discharge is cooled, dried and routed to the low temperature recovery section to reject light ends. The low temperature section offgas, which is a hydrogen-rich gas, can be sent to a Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) unit to purify the hydrogen.

Recovered liquids from the low temperature recovery section, along with the effluent flash drum liquid, are fed to distillation facilities and/or an MTBE synthesis unit for product recovery. The reactor temperature drops during the reaction step due to the endothermic reactions. Ancillary equipment is required for the reheat/regeneration steps, which are necessary to prepare the off-line reactors for their next reaction phase. During the reheat step, any carbon deposited on the catalyst is also burned off. The entire reactor sequence is computer controlled and requires no operator input for the cyclic operation.

“CB&I’s CATOFIN technology offers unmatched reliability and optimisation,” said Daniel M. McCarthy, CB&I’s Executive Vice President of Technology. “For our customers who license the technology, these benefits result in lower capital and operations costs for their projects and investments.”

For more information, visit: www.cbi.com

6th Apr 2018

6th April 2018