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Petrochemical

Petrochemical technology means to provide some pure hydrocarbons and special

products by natural gas and petroleum fractions that are processed and transformed in

intermediary or final products.

The number of hydrocarbons for petrochemistry is low (about 40) and the most used are:

methane, ethane, propane, normal and isobutane, normal and isopentane, cyclohexane, ethylene,

propylene, normal butanes, isobutene, butadiene, isoprene, acetylene, benzene, toluene, ethyl

benzene, xylenes, cumene, styrene and naphthalene. They can be used some special cuts as

follow: normal paraffin, -olephines, naphtenic acids a.o.

Petroleum and gas extraction industry and their processing give to petrochemistrygaseous hydrocarbon mixtures and certain petroleum cuts that represents feedstock sources for

physical and chemical specifically processes.

Example of such mixtures: natural gas, refinery offgas, ethane-ethylene mixtures,

propane-propylene mixtures, butane-butenes mixtures.

Example of petroleum cuts: naphtha from atmospheric distillation, petrol and diesel cuts,

aromatics streams, recycled oilgas from catalytic cracking a.o.

Separation and purification are mostly realized by physical processes. The main chemical

processes for pure hydrocarbons fabrication and fractions for petrochemistry are: pyrolysis,catalytic reforming (for BTX production), steam reforming, dehydrogenation, selective

hydrogenation, isomerization.

Together with hydrocarbons, in petrochemistry are used some inorganic feeds such as:

oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, clorhidric acid, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulphuric

acid, nitric acid, etc.

Processes for petrochemistry are: dehydrogenation, hydrogenation, oxidation, hydrotreating,

chlorination, hydrochlorination, sulphatation, sulphonation, dimerization, olygomerization,

polymerization, poly condensation, polyaddition a.o. Most of them are also used in organicchemical technology. The mainly user of petrochemical products is macromolecular compounds

industry which need monomers from petrochemistry. Petrochemistry technology is a link

between petroleum processing technology and organic chemistry technology. Petrochemistry and

petroleum processing form together hydrocarbon processing.

Examples of petrochemical products are: polyolephines, elastomers (that include only

carbon and hydrogen), polystyrene, detergents, synthetic proteins, solvents etc. Intermediates

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products are suitable for organic chemical technology and are much numerous: vinyl chloride,

vinyl acetate, acrylonitril, acroleyne, acrylic acid, phenol, acetone, alcohols, aldehydes,

terephthalic acid, maleic anhydride, phthalic anhydride etc. Its obvious the interdependence

between petroleum processing and petrochemistry, Due to the importance of petrochemistry,

worldwide hydrocarbons needs from oil and natural gas grew-up continuously. Such treatment

could be realized in petrochemical complexes.

Hydrogen

30 000

Acetic acid

80 000

Formaldehyde (100%)

50 000

Ethyl-2 hexanol

50 000

Isobutyraldehyde

5 000

Methanol

300 000

Ureea

300 000

Ammonia

200 000

Carbon monoxyde

9 000

CO-CO2adsorption

CO converssion

CO2 absorption

Methanation

CO separation

and purification

Steam reforming

Syntheses

Secondary reforming

(with air)

Desulfuration

CO2

H2 separation

H2/CO:3/1

370 000400 000

43 000

57 000170 000

1 800

H2/CO:1/1

45x106

Nm3

Propylene

43 000

Methane(natural gas)

33x1012

kJ/a

Methanation

41 000

Syntheses

CO2 absorption

CO converssion

H2

5,7x1012kJ/a 3,1x1012kJ/a 11,1x1012kJ/a 12,8x1012kJ/a 1,1x1012kJ/a