Lyondell Petrochemical Co., Houston, is moving on two fronts to enhance its U.S. operations.
The company last week said it will use its skeletal isomerization technology to produce isobutylene at its Channelview, Tex., complex.
The technology, marketed under the name Isomplus, will enable Lyondell to convert normal butylenes from its olefins plants to isobutylene in a single step. The isobutylene will be combined with methanol to produce methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline octane enhancer increasingly in demand under the Clean Air Act amendments.
A little earlier, Lyondell revealed plans for an industry first: a refinery demonstration using feedstock from an advanced plastics recycling technology that has the potential to increase such recycling throughout the U.S.
Petroleum liquids made from plastics will be processed at Lyondell-Citgo Refining Co.'s 265,000 b/cd Houston refinery and converted back to feedstocks from which plastics are made.
ISOMPLUS UNIT
Lyondell's Isomplus project will include modifications to a process unit used in the company's 1992 commercial demonstration of the Isomplus technology, as well as the expansion of an MTBE unit at Channelview to produce an additional 2,000-3,000 b/d of MTBE.
The Isomplus unit is expected to start up during second quarter 1994. The total project is expected to be completed during the third quarter.
Isomplus technology employs a selective catalytic process to isomerize normal olefins while minimizing production of lower value byproducts. This technology requires significantly less capital than other commercially available technology, Lyondell said.
The company has successfully tested the technology in the laboratory, a pilot plant, and a commercial scale demonstration.
"Our Isomplus process will enable us to profitably produce MTBE in today's market, which is relatively weak, and offers a substantial profit upside as the MTBE outlook improves," said Dan F, Smith, Lyondell executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Lyondell. "This also represents the most cost effective avenue for upgrading the value of available normal butylenes at our Channelview complex."
Lyondell Licensing Inc. entered into a joint development and licensing relationship with Cdtech last January to commercialize the isomerization technology. Later research significantly improved the catalyst used in the process.
Research also is under way to apply this same technology toward converting normal pentenes to isoamylene as a feedstock for tertiary amyl methyl ether, another oxygenated gasoline blending component.
Both processes employ a zeolitic catalyst developed jointly with Zeolyst International and marketed by Criterion Catalysts.
PLASTICS RECYCLING
"This advanced recycling program could potentially supplement existing plastics recycling techniques and help increase plastics recycling rates by converting many types of plastics into marketable products," Lyondell said.
The recycling demonstration is to be sponsored by the American Plastics Council (APC), made up of 25 plastic resin producers in the U.S., including Lyondell.
APC has teamed up with Conrad Industries, Inc., Chehalis, Wash., which developed a technology that applies heat to plastics in a closed unit, free of oxygen, to produce petroleum liquids. That feedstock can then be processed into monomers, the basic units from which plastics are made.
"Our initial objective is to demonstrate that petroleum based feedstocks made from plastics can be processed in an existing refinery coking unit to produce liquid hydrocarbons that can be made into products we all use," said Bob G. Gower, Lyondell president and chief executive officer and a member of the APC board of directors.
"We expect to demonstrate that this feedstock is indistinguishable from other feedstocks processed in a refinery's petroleum coking unit. Longer term, we hope this will be the initial phase of a recycling solution which will increase the quantity and variety of plastics that can be recycled."
The 6,000 gal of petroleum feedstocks to be processed in the demonstration were generated from a blend of virgin polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene.
Lyondell-Citgo will process the petroleum liquids along with intermediate refinery product streams in its coker.
The test will take about 4 hr, providing data for evaluation by Lyondell, Conrad, and APC.
Copyright 1993 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
