Entwicklung petrochemischer Verfahren vom Laborversuch zur kommerziellen Anlage

Abstract

Development of a petrochemical process from laboratory scale tests to a commercial plant. A plant producing TAME (tertiary amyl methyl ether) and isoamylene serves as an example illustrating the development of a petrochemical process from laboratory scale tests to a commercial size plant. TAME is an anti‐knock compound used in unleaded gasoline, and isoamylene is a multi‐purpose specialty chemical. In an introduction, the laboratory and pilot plants at EC Erdoelchemie GmbH in Cologne, Germany are presented. Subsequently the main process engineering developments made through experience gained with a semicommercial demonstration plant are discussed. These include optimization of the reactors, design of a methanol extraction unit, and the separation of TAME and high purity isoamylene in specially designed distillation towers. The high degree of coordination during the experimental testing phase to match the requirements of the basic and detail engineering allowed the commercial plant to be started up without expensive modifications within 4 years. The resulting savings overcompensate the costs of the semicommercial plant.

Modeling and Simulation of Tubular Reactor in the tert-Amyl Methyl Ether Synthesis Process

“…Although there are several reports on the kinetics of TAME synthesis, the modeling and simulation of the tubular reactor in the traditional TAME process are rarely discussed. Only the paper published by Boeckler et al showed some design data for scaling up from laboratory to demo plant . After successful application of catalytic distillation (CD) in the MTBE process, more attention is focused on the improvement of the traditional TAME process.…”