UOP technology to boost SR production in Romania

qiangzi

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Des Plaines, IL - UOP Ltd., a Honeywell company, announced that its technology has been selected to boost yields at Romania’s largest synthetic rubber production facility. Romania’s Energy Bio-Chemicals will use Honeywell’s UOP KLP process to purify butadiene, a monomer used to produce synthetic rubber, at the company’s Carom Onesti styrene butadiene rubber facility. The project is part of the company’s modernization investment program to upgrade its butadiene installation and increase production. “UOP is committed to technologies that help refining and petrochemical producers maximize their yields,” said Pete Piotrowski, vice president and general manager of Honeywell’s UOP Process Technology and Equipment business unit. “As global demand for tires continues to grow, UOP’s technology allows producers to maximize yields with nearly 100 percent conversion of vinyl acetylene to butadiene.” The KLP process increases the yield of butadiene, while also eliminating acetylene, a difficult-to-handle and unwanted byproduct, from the process. UOP will also provide a proprietary Caustic Merox unit to remove sulfur from the crude C4 feedstock. The contract includes licensing, engineering, technical support and catalysts. Honeywell’s UOP KLP process selectively adds hydrogen to acetylenes in a facility’s crude butadiene stream, typically providing an additional 1.5 to 2 percent increase in butadiene yields compared with alternative solvent removal methods not employing UOP’s KLP process. In addition, elimination of the acetylenes typically provides a 1 to 3 percent increase in Raff-1 product yield. Raff-1 is another valuable byproduct of butadiene extraction processes, containing C4 olefins such as isobutylene and butene-1.