KOREAN COMPANY STARTS UP FIRST ARS-BASED ETHYLENE UNIT
Han Yang Chemical Corp. is successfully operating the world's first ethylene plant to incorporate Stone & Webster Engineering Corp.'s Advanced Recovery System (ARS) technology. The plant is Han Yang's first venture into ethylene production.
Naphtha feedstock was first introduced into the Yeochun, Korea, plant in December 1992. Within 5 days, all product specifications were achieved. Kenneth Bush, olefins technology manager for Stone & Webster, Houston, says the plant has continued to operate above its design capacity of 350,000 metric tons/year (mty).
Through the start-up period, the Han Yang ARS operated smoothly over a wide range of process conditions without incident.
The plant has the flexibility to operate on naphtha, atmospheric gas oil, or C4 LPG. By-products include propylene, mixed C4S, and aromatics.
ARS technology, patented by Stone & Webster and Mobil Chemical Co., employs Air Products & Chemicals Inc.'s dephlegmator design (OGJ, Apr. 20, 1992, p. 94). ARS uses dephlegmators in the demethanizer area to chill the feed and make preliminary component separations (Fig. 1).
Portions of the main cracked gas stream are able to bypass the demethanizer and de-ethanizer, thus making better use of this equipment. Greater efficiency is obtained by the prefractionation of the feed to the ethylene fractionator. These innovations make it possible to utilize smaller towers for a given capacity, thus reducing recovery-section energy consumption by approximately 10%, according to Bush.
The new facility also incorporates the latest version of Stone & Webster's Ultra Selective Conversion (USC) cracking and quench-exchange system. This system has demonstrated high ethylene selectivity and good run-length performance, says Stone & Webster.
Stone & Webster has licensed several additional ARS-based plants currently under construction.
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