Issue 37/2015 - First coalescing separation technology for nitrobenzene production

Recently, the industrial application project of the process of reducing the sodium salt content in crude nitrobenzene undertaken by Sinopec Nanhua Research Institute passed the project appraisal
organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Sinopec.
The appraisal team believes that the overall technology of the project has reached the international advanced level
.

This project is the first to apply coalescence separation technology to nitrobenzene washing and separation, and developed a new process to reduce the sodium salt content in crude nitrobenzene, which can reduce the sodium salt content in crude nitrobenzene to less than
6×10-6.

The process has been industrially applied to the 180,000-ton nitrobenzene plant of Nanhua Company, realizing the continuous and stable operation
of the plant.
The application results showed that the average value of sodium ions decreased from 18.
42×10-6 to 5.
42×10-6, and the sodium salt content decreased by 70.
6%.
The average phenol content decreased from 2.
32×10-6 to 1.
17×10-6, and the phenolic salt content decreased by 49.
6%, which improved the safety of
the system.
The process technology has applied for 2 national invention patents, of which 1 has been authorized
.

Nitrobenzene is an important organic chemical raw material for the production of aniline, and the increase in sodium ion content in the production process will cause the nitrobenzene preheater to be often blocked, so it needs to be cleaned regularly, and the sodium nitrophenol contained in it is an explosive dangerous product, which brings hidden dangers
to production safety.
(Medium)