【Ten Years of Great Progress in Chemical Technology】Successful Application of Domestic AMS Hydrogenation Catalysts at Yanshan Petrochemical from 2011 to 2023
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Ten years of rapid development in chemical technology – praise for China’s prosperity and strength. This is just a starting point; more participation from everyone will make things even more lively. HaiChuan becomes even better with your involvement; we welcome everyone to join in the forum discussions. It’s hot in July, so be careful to prevent fires. ********************************************* Recently, the AMS hydrogenation catalyst developed by the Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology was successfully applied in Yanshan Petrochemical’s 160,000-ton/year phenol propylene unit. The operation started successfully on the first attempt, with qualified products being produced. In 2016, the new type of AMS highly selective hydrogenation catalyst developed by the Shanghai Research Institute was used industrially for the first time at Yanshan Petrochemical, demonstrating excellent hydrogenation performance and stability; this time it was installed after a major plant overhaul. Since February 2023, the research team at the Shanghai Institute has been working on catalyst production and performance evaluation to ensure that the production tasks related to AMS hydrogenation catalysts are completed on time and to a high standard. In May, the catalyst was sent to the plant site, and researchers from the Shanghai Institute went to Yanshan Petrochemical to verify the plant conditions and carry out catalyst activation. On June 5, the unit was successfully started up with a single charging operation, producing qualified products. Currently, the device is operating stably, and the product quality exceeds the specified standards. The successful reapplication of AMS hydrogenation catalysts at Yanshan Petrochemical has laid a solid foundation for their further adoption in large-scale industrial facilities. The research team at the Shanghai Institute will strive for excellence and pursue innovation, completing industrial application tasks with high quality in order to contribute to the high-quality development of China’s petrochemical industry.
In June 1997, YANHUA Company built China’s first 10,000-ton per year phenol propionic acid production facility. The device uses benzene and propylene as raw materials to produce phenol propionate via the isopropylbenzene method. The device produced its first batch of products on July 1, 1970. The designed production capacity is 6,000 tons of phenol, with 3,600 tons of propylene produced as a by-product. The technology used to build 10,000-ton-scale facilities is primarily based on two pilot-scale plants in China. Since the two pilot plants have only been operated intermittently for short periods during each process step, complete data cannot be provided, which poses significant difficulties in the design of the industrial plant. At that time, guided by the spirit of \"going ahead if conditions permit, and creating those conditions if they don’t,\" the device was designed, built, and put into operation after conducting some necessary supplementary experiments. The number of difficulties and problems encountered throughout the process is imaginable; it is difficult to build a set of equipment, and even more difficult to operate it properly. After being put into operation, the device underwent continuous improvements and refinements, and achieved continuous operation in 1972.
At 23:58 on August 21, 1974, everything was proceeding as usual during the shift change when, suddenly, there was a loud explosion – the tank numbered 321, which contained isopropylbenzene peroxide, exploded. The direct cause of the accident was that the water supply valve on the concentration cooler was not opened while driving. Although it was opened after discovery, since both the feed pipe and discharge pipe of tank 321 were located at the bottom of the tank, the hydrogen peroxide isopropylphenol that flowed along a shorter path could not mix with the hot material in the upper part of the tank, resulting in the accumulation of hot material there for an extended period. This led to thermal decomposition and subsequently an explosion. The accident resulted in 13 deaths (including 2 faculty and students from Tianjin University), 5 severe injuries, and 17 minor injuries. Some walls of the oxidation plant building were knocked down by the blast waves, most of the control panels and electrical rooms were destroyed, and the equipment suffered severe damage; the direct economic loss amounted to 286,000 yuan. To remember the painful lessons of history, Yanshan Petrochemical designates August of each year as the company’s Safety Production Month.
With the rapid increase in market demand for phenol propylates, there is an urgent need to expand the production capacity of the facilities. In 1986, YANHEA Company introduced technology from Japan’s Mitsui Oil Chemicals to build the first phenol and propylene plant, with an annual production capacity of 50,000 tons of phenol and 30,000 tons of propylene. From then on, the technical level of Yanshan Petrochemical’s phenol propylcate production facility reached the international standard of the late 1970s. Isopropylbenzene is an intermediate in the production of phenol propionate; the phenol propionate production plants introduced require aluminum trichloride as the main catalyst and anhydrous hydrogen chloride as a co-catalyst. Using this process not only results in a large amount of wastewater being discharged, but it also causes severe corrosion to the equipment and pipelines. To address this issue, in 1998, Yanhua Company developed a new generation of catalysts on its own. The introduction of these new catalysts along with improved production processes reduced the workload for workers, enabled zero discharge of wastewater from the isopropylbenzene production process, and eliminated environmental pollution and equipment corrosion at the source.
In 2003, the first phenol propylcate production plant was expanded to a capacity of 160,000 tons per year, with Yanshan Petrochemical utilizing its own technology and working together with Huatai Engineering Company to carry out the design. Among them, the hydrocarbonation unit was upgraded using a self-developed YSBH molecular sieve-catalyzed gas-phase process for the synthesis of isopropylbenzene, reaching the international advanced level at that time.