Issue 2/2013 - Sinopec masters xylene production know-how

Sinopec has mastered the know-how of xylene production

Recently, the first set of toluene methylation industrial equipment in China completed the industrial operation test
.
The success of the industrial operation test of the plant marks that Sinopec has become the first company in the world to have toluene methanol methylation know-how, opening up a new way to
combine and comprehensively utilize petroleum resources and coal resources.

The plant is provided by Shanghai Petrochemical Research Institute with process package and proprietary catalyst, Luoyang Engineering Company undertakes the engineering design, and Yangzi Petrochemical Company is responsible for plant construction, start-up plan preparation and feeding trial production
.
Industry insiders believe that methanol as a coal chemical derivative product, the cost is relatively low, toluene methanol methylation technology has promoted the combination of coal chemical industry and petrochemical industry, realized the high value-added application of coal chemical products, is a new route
of xylene production with great economic and social benefits.

The toluene methanol methylation process uses methanol as a methylation reagent to efficiently convert toluene into xylene
.
The plant is based on the original 200,000 tons/year toluene selective disproportionation plant of Yangzi Petrochemical, using petroleum products toluene and coal chemical products methanol as raw materials, and producing refined terephthalic acid (PTA) raw material p-xylene as the target product
.
The plant is designed to process toluene with a capacity of 200,000 tons/year, which can produce 240,000 tons/year of high-quality mixed aromatic hydrocarbons, which is expected to greatly reduce the production cost
of paraxylene after operation.

With the expansion of domestic PTA plant capacity, the contradiction of the mismatch between paraxylene and PTA upstream and downstream has become more and more prominent, and the downstream PTA has overcapacity and the upstream paraxylene resources are in short supply
.

Since the 70s of the last century, many domestic and foreign companies have carried out research and development of methylation of toluene methanol, and there have been no reports of
commercial operation so far.
In 2009, Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Research Institute set up a project to carry out industrial lateral line test research
on toluene methylation technology.
They have successively completed the industrial sideline test and the development and design of the 200,000 tons/year process package, successfully developed high-performance toluene methylation catalysts, multi-bed reaction processes, wastewater treatment processes, thermal joint and low-temperature heat utilization processes, etc.
, applied for domestic and foreign patents covering catalytic materials, catalysts and process technologies, and have the technical conditions
to take the lead in realizing the industrialization of toluene methylation technology in the world.

(Li Meng)