What are the characteristics of alkylation, etherification, and isomerization processes? What is the raw material used for processing? What are the differences between the products?
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What are the characteristics of alkylation, etherification, and isomerization processes? What is the raw material used for processing? What are the differences between the products?
Etherification is a process used to treat the remaining C4 compounds from gas processing units; it involves reacting isobutylene present in these compounds with methanol to produce MTBE. Isomerization, on the other hand, is used to process the C4 compounds after etherification, by isomerizing butenes within those compounds into isobutylene, which is then fed into the MTBE etherification unit. Alkylation is a process carried out on tetrahydrocarbons after ether production, where butylene and isobutane in those tetrahydrocarbons are consumed to produce isooctane.
Alkylation: Butene + Isobutane; Esterification: Isobutene + Methanol; Isomerization: n-Butene isomerizes to isobutene, n-Butane isomerizes to isobutane