Crude butadiene to styrene process
- Dow Chemical Co., Midland, MI (United States)
One of the natural by-products of ethylene manufacture is a mixture of C4`s containing butadiene, butenes and butane. This C4 stream is the predominant feed stock for producing pure butadiene by an extraction process. The demand growth for ethylene far exceeds that for butadiene resulting in a world wide surplus of butadiene. The ethylene producer has a number of options available to process the crude C4 stream if the market price does not justify isolation of the pure butadiene. The first option is recycle the crude C4 stream back to the ethylene cracker and co-crack with fresh feed. A second option that has become popular in the last few years has been the partial or complete hydrogenation of the butadiene and butenes in the crude C4 stream. Partial or selective hydrogenation is preferred when there is a market for iso-butene which finds use in MTBE manufacture. Full hydrogenation is used when cracker feed stock is limited, there is excess hydrogen and no cost effective outlets exist for butenes. Full hydrogenation produces butanes that are excellent crack feed stock. Both selective and full hydrogenation require low to moderate capital expenditure. Both of these options are currently being practiced to remove excess butadiene from the market. The crude C4 to styrene process developed by Dow offers an attractive, high value alternative to an olefins producer. This process selectively upgrades butadiene in C4 streams to styrene monomer and produces raffinate-1 as a by-product. The process is currently being operated at the 18--40 lb/hr scale in a Dow Texas pilot plant.
- OSTI ID:
- 288672
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9404309-; TRN: IM9639%%381
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 6. ethylene producers conference, Atlanta, GA (United States), 17-21 Apr 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1994; Related Information: Is Part Of 6. ethylene producers` conference: Proceedings. Volume 3; PB: 721 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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