【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Equipment】3021-2026: Lu’an Chemical Machinery Builds the World’s Largest 3,700-ton Raffinate Tower

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Give praise and encouragement to the achievements made in China’s chemical engineering technology and equipment; your participation in discussions is the greatest encouragement. **********************【Ten Years of Great Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】Ongoing updates and summaries available; feel free to join the discussions: https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html ***************** On February 12th, reporters learned from Lu’an Chemical Machinery Group (abbreviated as “Lu’an Chemi”) that the “giant” equipment manufactured by the company – the raffinate tower – was officially delivered recently. The tower has a diameter of 14.1 meters, a height of 122 meters, a wall thickness of 140 millimeters, and a total weight of 3,700 tons, setting a new world record for the largest distillate tower. It is said that the raffinate tower is a core equipment in petrochemical aromatic compound plants. It separates the heavier components in a mixture (such as non-aromatics) through distillation or fractional distillation processes, to extract high-purity aromatics (such as benzene and xylene). The heavier components (such as non-aromatics) remain at the bottom of the tower, while the light components with high purity, such as benzene and xylene, are sent to the next processing stage, where they are transformed into essential chemical raw materials for everyday use, such as plastics and fibers. “This ‘Giant’ distillate tower has an extremely large size, thick walls, and heavy weight, making its construction extremely difficult. But we overcame one ‘limiting challenge’ after another and completed the delivery in just 6 months. ”A responsible person from Lu’an Huaji said. This tower requires a large amount of steel plates and welding materials, which must all be in place at once; any additional materials will delay the progress. At the same time, the requirements for dimensional accuracy are extremely strict, with the control precision of welding deformation measured in millimeters. The official said that after the contract was signed, the company’s team devoted itself fully to production, continuously optimizing the scheduling plans and strictly controlling product quality. Through the \"daily clearing and optimization\" scheduling approach and digital quality inspection, delivery speeds were significantly increased, ultimately reducing the manufacturing cycle to 6 months. This allowed the world’s largest distillation column to be installed ahead of schedule, laying a solid foundation for the early operation of the aromatic compounds production facility associated with this key project.