Journal of Advanced Chemical Engineering

Alternative green technology for reducing bromine index value of industrial benzene feedstock

Joint Event on World Chemistry, Catalysis & Petro Engineering

MAY 13-14, 2019 | LONDON, UK

Kongkiat Suriye

SCG Chemicals Co. Ltd, Thailand

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Adv Chem Eng

Abstract:

Benzene is commonly produced from various petrochemical processes such as thermal cracking of naphtha. It is used as a feedstock in the wide ranges of petrochemical processes to produce downstream valuable products such as Polystyrene and Phenol. It often contains trace amount of unsaturated hydrocarbon as impurity which can severely cause a deactivation of downstream catalysts. Therefore, unsaturated hydrocarbon must be removed before used as a feedstock in subsequent downstream processes. Standard analytical technique used for measuring trace amount of unsaturated hydrocarbon in benzene feedstock is the Bromine Index (BI) technique. This is an indirect technique used for determining trace amount of unsaturated hydrocarbon that conventional Gas Chromatography (GC) cannot do accurately (too low concentration to quantify). Nowadays, the existing commercial-available technology for reducing the Bromine Index value (BI) of the industrial benzene feedstock is a catalytic alkylation process operated at high reaction temperature and pressure. Reaction pathway is a conversion of reactant between unsaturated hydrocarbon and benzene to heavier alkyl aromatics that are able to separate by a conventional fractionation, thus a subsequent fractionation is required for this existing technology. In summary, the existing catalytic alkylation technology needs high operating cost because high reaction temperature and pressure are required the spent catalyst could not be regenerated and high investment cost due to a requirement of the subsequent fractionation. For the environment point of view, the spent catalyst could not be regenerated, then this hazardous material needs to go to landfill causing a big environmentally concern. In 2011, SCG chemicals could successfully develop and commercialize our own developed technology for Bromine Index (BI) reduction of benzene feedstock based on the adsorption chemistry. This new technology is capable to operate at room temperature and mild pressure, reuse the spent catalyst using mild regeneration temperature, and reduce Bromine Index (BI) value without the loss of valuable benzene feedstock (no need subsequent fractionation). This, of cause could result in much lower operating and investment costs with higher environmental friendly compared with the existing catalytic alkylation technology.

Biography :

Kongkiat Suriye obtained his BE degree (1st ranking in class) in Chemical Engineering from King Mongkut’s University of Technology, Thonburi, Thailand, and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from a joint programme between Chulalongkorn University, Thailand and University of California, Davis, USA. He has been working as a researcher in SCG Chemicals for almost 10 years. He has authored more than 37 international papers and one book chapter in fields of heterogeneous catalyst and catalytic process. He has also invented more than 20 international patents in these fields. One of his own developed technologies has been already commercially implemented. Two have been on the processes of implementation and licensing. Moreover, two of his newest technologies have been on the pilot plant proven stage.

E-mail: kongkias@scg.co.th