New High Capacity Adsorbent for Oxygenate, Nitrogen, and Sulfur Compound Removal from Olefinic C4 Streams

Demands placed upon C4 olefin producers have been pressed in light of the global petrochemical market and has led producers to re-evaluate opportunities for maximizing unit throughput and feedstock flexibility. Olefinic C4s derived from steam cracker or refinery sources require purification before use in various petrochemical applications as well as MTBE production. Each of these processes require feed purification systems which typically are adsorption based given stringent purity specifications. Increasing throughput and/or processing lower quality feedstocks will accordingly increase the load placed on the feed purification processes which are tasked with removing contaminants such as water, oxygenates, nitrogen and sulfur compounds.

To help meet our customer’s needs, UOP has developed a new set of high capacity molecular sieve adsorbents for removal of oxygenate, nitrogen, and sulfur contaminants from C4 olefinic streams. These adsorbents display enhanced capacity for key contaminants in addition to a relatively long life in most cases. A key to achieving these benefits is the low reactivity nature of the adsorbent. Extensive pilot plant testing has been conducted showing performance improvement and establishing longer adsorbent life relative to UOP’s previous generation adsorbents in highly olefinic feedstocks. Results of these tests and the benefits for olefinic C4 processing will be discussed. The product has recently been commercialized in a US gulf coast location, which historically exhibited short adsorbent life, while processing a challenging feedstock.