Red-oils in ethylene plants: formation mechanisms, structure and emulsifying properties
| Autor: | Jerome Vachon, Jan Jordens, Fabrice Cuoq, G.T.C. Kwakkenbos |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
chemistry.chemical_classification
Ethylene Fouling Red oil Scrubber 02 engineering and technology Pyrolysis gasoline 010402 general chemistry 01 natural sciences 0104 chemical sciences chemistry.chemical_compound Hydrocarbon 020401 chemical engineering chemistry Emulsion General Earth and Planetary Sciences Organic chemistry 0204 chemical engineering Oxygenate General Environmental Science |
| Zdroj: | Applied Petrochemical Research. 6:397-402 |
| ISSN: | 2190-5533 2190-5525 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s13203-016-0171-0 |
| Popis: | In most ethylene plants, the caustic sections suffer from red-oils formation which results from the polyaldol condensation of some oxygenate species in basic media. These red-oils lead to solid material deposition which is generically referred to as fouling and which can cause severe energy losses or operational issues. This specific red-oil fouling can be successfully mitigated by regularly washing the caustic scrubber with a hydrocarbon washing stream which acts as a solvent. However, such washing streams can be further rerouted to the quench water system, increasing the risk of emulsion formation due to its amphiphilic components, i.e., red-oils, compromising the safe operation of the whole plant. The complexity of red-oil structures renders its analysis and characterization challenging. Consequently, there has been no study showing the effect of the type of hydrocarbon wash on the red-oils structure and its potential emulsifying properties. This study describes an in-house developed analytical technique based on UPLC-High resolution QTOF which allows characterizing hydrocarbon streams with complex mixtures of oxygenated species. This method has been successfully applied to monitor red-oil structures during a plant trial where Pyrolysis Gasoline and Toluene-Xylene hydrocarbon washes were successively applied. The data revealed that reactive compounds from the Pyrolysis Gasoline react with the polyaldol species, likely through a Diels–Alder mechanism, thus increasing the diene adduct concentration in the red-oil. It was further found that toluene-xylene washes hindered the emulsifying properties of the red-oils more effectively than Pyrolysis Gasoline washes, in that they could best inhibit the formation of polyaldols adducts. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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