Catalyst recovery in MTO?
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This post was last edited by liaifeng on 2018-7-28 07:23. In the MTO process, are there units for recovering catalyst sludge in the quench towers? Is it recovered directly into the reactor?
There isn’t any; the catalysts in the quench tower are all discharged along with the quench water, and the discharged catalysts are treated as pollutants.
It seems there is no catalyst recovery; this could be considered for inclusion in the design
It’s not easy to operate; is production going smoothly for you?
No, I see from the drawings that the UOP process design includes a pipeline for recovering catalyst sludge
It should reduce catalyst consumption, after all, UOP’s catalysts are very expensive
In terms of the process flow, it is required to recycle it back into the reactor in order to reduce catalyst waste. However, alkali is generally added to the quench tower, and Na+ is present at the bottom of the tower, making it difficult to control. Many MTO units nowadays use aqueous-phase filtration systems to separate the catalyst from water; after compression into pellets, the catalyst is then treated separately
That catalyst is now useless; it has no value for recycling