Acetic acid plants

Hoechst Celanese officials said it was too early to decide whether to rebuild the butane reactor, install a newer methanol-to-acetic acid process, or start up a standby acetic acid facility at Hay City, TX, to replace the idled 350-million-lb per year acetic acid plant. 

The rhodium process is highly selective and operates under mild reaction pressure, 400 to 1000 psig. However, because of the high price of rhodium, an efficient recovery of the catalyst is essential. An expensive rhodium recovery section is an integral part of any new acetic acid plant (15-16). This can be a substantial financial burden, especially in a smaller plant. 

Sandwich casting permits one to prepare an MIP film with uniform thickness [28, 106, 108, 109]. In this procedure, a drop of the solution containing a monomer, cross-linker, template and initiator is dispensed on the surface of a PZ transducer and covered with a microscope quartz slide. Then this assembly is exposed to UV light in order to initiate polymerization that results in a thin MIP film. The polymerization can be performed either on the activated immobilized initiator PZ transducer surface or on the bare transducer surface. For example, sialic acid has been determined with an MIP film immobilized on a platinum-film electrode of the quartz resonator using the former procedure [57]. That is, 1-butanethiol has been used for modification of the Pt surface. An indole-3-acetic acid plant hormone served as the template. An MIP-PZ chemosensor prepared that way operated reproducibly. That is, the coefficient of variation of the chemosensor performance was 9% for three different sensors. 

The Cativa process was first commercialized in 1995, with the retro-fitting to an existing rhodium-based plant in Texas City (USA), and several other acetic acid plants now use the Cativa technology. 

Since the development of Cativa , BP has converted three world-scale acetic acid plants from the old Rh-based high-water Monsanto technology to the Ir-based low-water process. Significant capital and operating cost savings were achieved from the conversion of a Rh-based process to an Ir-based process. Also, the start-up in 2000 of a 500 X 10 metric ton per year acetic acid plant in Malaysia uses the Cativa process [20d]. 

Even though methanol carbonylation is the favored process for new acetic acid capacity today, existing paraffin oxidation plants remain quite competitive where coproducts can be marketed successfully [2, 3]. Over half the original capacity of acetic acid plants based on paraffin oxidation remains in use today. In North America, Hoechst Celanese operates two facilities using the butane oxidation process to make acetic acid. The reported 1994 capacity at Pampa, Texas, is 250000 metric tons/year, while that at monton, Alberta, is 75 000 metric tons/year [4]. There are two plants believed to be using the naphtha oxidation process to make acetic acid BP Chemicals in Hull, England, with a capacity of 210000 metric tons/year [5] and a state complex in Armenia (in the former USSR) with a capacity reported to be 35 000 metric tons/year [6]. 

The federal government fined the company 3 million dollars for the various citations in relation to the accident.122 Hoechst is another company that has had repeated problems a serious pollution problem at Griesheim, Germany in 1993, as well as seven major incidents, mostly in Europe, between January 1995 and June 1996, including leaks of acrylic acid and a fire and explosion in an acetic acid plant at Clear Lake, Texas a fire in a 2-ethylhexanol plant in Oberhausen, Germany and problems with the methanol plant in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.123... 

I f/-tetrazole)acetic acids Plant growth regulators 265. 266,... 

These two derivatives of the earlier Monsanto technology are the predominant acetic acid processes today and are equally competitive in the market place. Since the advent of the Monsanto Acetic Acid process almost all new acetic acid plants are based on methanol carbonylation and acetaldehyde oxidation has been nearly phased out as a source of acetic acid. The advances in Rh and Ir based methanol carbonylation have recently been reviewed. ... 

Despite the high tonnages of petrochemicals, the chemical industry as a whole consumes rather less than 10% of available petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons as feedstocks, with possibly a further 4-5% as fuel. For comparison, the current consumption of gasoline alone in Western Europe exceeds 120 Mt per annum, while the U.S. figure is over 300 Mt per annum. Hence, prices of individual hydrocarbon feedstocks are largely determined by other forces the most economic feedstock/route combination has frequently changed with time, and may differ in different parts of the world. Furthermore, while a specific route may be preferred for new plants, older plants for which the capital is largely written off may well remain economically viable. Finally, special situations may prompt individual solutions. For example, Rhone-Poulenc in France derive the carbon monoxide for a very modern acetic acid plant, based on Monsanto s methanol carbonylation process, from the partial... 

Andreae WA, Venis MA, Jursic E, Dumas T (1968) Does ethylene mediate root growth inhibition by indole-3-acetic acid Plant Physiol 43 1375-1379 Anker L (1973) The auxin production of the physiological tip of the Avena coleoptile and the repression of tip regeneration by indoleacetic acid (not by naphthylacetic acid and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid). Acta Bot Neerl 22 221-227 Anker L (1975) Auxin-synthesis inhibition by abscisic acid, and its reversal by gibberellic acid. Acta Bot Neerl 24 339-347... 

Chadwick AV, Burg SP (1967) An explanation of the inhibition of root growth caused by indole-3-acetic acid. Plant Physiol 42 415-420 Chadwick AV, Burg SP (1970) Regulation of root growth by auxin-ethylene interaction. Plant Physiol 45 192-200... 

Vince-Prue D (1975) Photoperiodism in plants. McGraw Hill, London, p 444 Wang TL, Everett NP, Gould AR, Street HE (1981) Studies on the control of the cell cycle in cultured plant cells. III. The effects of cytokinin. Protoplasma 106 23-35 Warden WL (1975) Rapid initiation of thymidine incorporation into deoxyribonucleic acid in vegetative tobacco stem segments treated with indole-3-acetic acid. Plant Physiol (Bethesda) 56 171-176... 

Fig. 15. Flow sheet of BASF acetic acid plant...

Interesting news was released by Monsanto [1011, 1012] who reported that they are going to build a large acetic acid plant at Texas City for startup in 1970. Acetic acid will be manufactured by low pressure carbonylation of methanol using a rhodium catalyst together with a halogen promotor [1009, 1010, 1013] instead of cobalt catalyst, which is used in the BASF process. 

Picture ofthe Celanese acetic acid plant in Nanjing, China. By courtesy of Celanese Corporation... 

Eastman recently expanded the plant to increase the acetic anhydride production capacity to 1.2 billion Ib/yr (20). The new facilities include a new acetic acid plant and an expansion of the methyl acetate plant. 

Table 1 Summary of acetic acid plants which use (or will use) the Cativa process...

Celanese Chemicals (Dallas, TX, USA www.celanese.com) is building a 600 000 tpa acetic acid plant at the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park, adjacent to the BASF/Sinopec petrochemical complex being built. Production is expected by eariy 2006. Acetic acid demand in China is growing by 10%/y, as is demand for its major derivative, vinyl acetate monomer. 

Park, W.J., Kriechbaumer, V., Muller, A., Piotrowski, M., Meeley, R.B., Gierl, A., and Glawischnig, E. (2003). The nitrilase ZmNIT2 converts indole-3-acetonitrile to indole-3-acetic acid. Plant Physiology, 133, 794-802. 

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