Successful industrial test of new propane/butane dehydrogenation technology in my country

China University of Petroleum (East China) announced on June 22 that the new propane/butane developed by the State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil and designed by China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation Huadong Design Branch Dehydrogenation (ADHO) technology has been successfully industrialized in Shandong Hengyuan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. recently. This alkane dehydrogenation technology, which has been intensively researched for seven years, has filled the gap in China.

At present, my country’s propane and isobutane dehydrogenation technologies are all imported from abroad. The catalysts used in industrial propane and isobutane dehydrogenation units are generally loaded noble metal platinum or toxic chromium catalysts, and the price of platinum catalysts is It is expensive and the raw materials need to be deeply purified, and the use of chromium-based catalysts has serious environmental protection problems. The development of environmentally friendly non-precious metal catalysts has always been a technical problem in propane/butane dehydrogenation.

In order to solve this problem, after seven years of painstaking research, Professor Li Chunyi’s research group at the State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil, China University of Petroleum (East China), successfully developed a non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-precious metal oxide catalyst, and made a contribution to it. A high-efficiency circulating fluidized bed reactor has been developed to support the continuous dehydrogenation reaction and catalyst burnt regeneration. The industrial test results of Shandong Hengyuan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. show that the single-pass conversion rate of alkanes, the yield and selectivity of olefins are comparable to the Russian Snamprogetti technology introduced in China, which fills the gap in this technology field in China.

The new propane/butane dehydrogenation (ADHO) technology has the following characteristics: raw materials can be directly put into the device for reaction without pretreatment, eliminating the need for complex technical processes such as desulfurization, arsenic removal, and lead removal; It is suitable for dehydrogenation of propane and isobutane alone, and it is also suitable for mixed dehydrogenation of propane and butane; the reaction and catalyst regeneration are carried out continuously, and the production efficiency is high; the catalyst is non-toxic and has no pollution to the environment; the catalyst is a refractory oxide, non-corrosive , which is conducive to the long-term safe and stable operation of the device; the catalyst has high mechanical strength and low agent consumption.

It is reported that my country is rich in liquefied petroleum gas, which is mainly composed of propane, n-butane and isobutane. Dehydrogenation of alkanes to olefins can not only increase the high added value of products, but also reduce the impact of olefin production on It depends on the cracking process, and can also by-produce hydrogen with higher added value to improve the comprehensive utilization level of oil and gas resources.