BP process

A series of industry-scale processes for recovery of liquid fuel from waste plastics have been developed and applied in countries such as the United States, Japan, Germany and England. Some of the processes, such as the Veba process, the BP process, the Fuji process and the Hunan University process have been applied widely and successfully in industry. Some typical pyrolysis processes are listed in Table 28.6. 

In the Veba process [31], a mixture of vacuum residue, lignite and waste plastics is pyrolyzed under conditions similar to the case of crude oil hydrogenation. The main products include gaseous hydrocarbons, alkanes, cyclanes and aromatics. 

The main difference between Veba process and other processes lies in that hydrogenation technology is used in this process, which improves the quality of products. At the same time, waste plastics are stirred and fully mixed by hydrogen. This whole apparatus is capable of disposing of 40000 tons of waste plastics per year, but is relatively complicated and expensive. 

The BP process [7] is based on a sand fluidized-bed pyrolysis reactor. The cracking temperature is kept at 400-600°C. Low-molecular hydrocarbons can be obtained. The process mainly involves converting waste plastics into normal linear hydrocarbons, the average molecular weight of which is 300-500. Most plastics can be treated by this process. Polyolefins are decomposed into small molecules with the same linear structure. PS is converted into styrene monomers and PET into mixture of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. A maximum of 2% PVC is allowed in this process, and the content of chlorine in the products is lower than 5 ppm. The distribution of alkene products in this process is like that in petroleum pyrolysis. The BP process was industrialized in 1997. 

The biggest difference between this process and the others lies in the reactor, which was originally a fixed-bed reactor. A sand fluidized-bed reactor has been adopted for the BP process, which can guarantee a uniform temperature in the reactor due to the uniform particle size and fluidized nature of sand. In traditional processes, because of the poor heat transfer properties of plastics, a uniform temperature is difficult to achieve in the plastics feedstocks so a long reaction time was always required. On the other hand, after waste plastics are heated and melted, they usually adhere to the surface of reactors owing to their poor flow characteristics. The BP process has successfully solved all these problems, and a continuous production of liquid oil is achieved. 

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In contrast to the rhodium process the most abundant iridium species, the catalyst resting state, in the BP process is not the lr(l) iodide, but the product of the oxidative addition of Mel to this complex. 

Hydrophilic and hydrophobic sterilizing-grade filters are used throughout the BPS process for the sterilization of product and air, respectively. Pilters used should be... 

The commercialized BP and UOP processes employ different dual functional platinum catalysts. The BP process was first commercialized between 1963 and 1966 the UOP process in 1959. The BP catalyst has not been modified since its commercial introduction, but the UOP catalyst system has undergone further development (24). An advantage of the BP process is that the catalyst is activated and regenerated in situ. Considering the hydroscopic nature of all the isomerization catalyst sys-... 

Butane from natural gas is cheap and abundant in the United States, where it is used as an important feedstock for the synthesis of acetic acid. Since acetic acid is the most stable oxidation product from butane, the transformation is carried out at high butane conversions. In the industrial processes (Celanese, Hills), butane is oxidized by air in an acetic acid solution containing a cobalt catalyst (stearate, naphthenate) at 180-190 °C and 50-70 atm.361,557 The AcOH yield is about 40-45% for ca. 30% butane conversion. By-products include C02 and formic, propionic and succinic acids, which are vaporized. The other by-products are recycled for acetic acid synthesis. Light naphthas can be used instead of butane as acetic adic feedstock, and are oxidized under similar conditions in Europe where natural gas is less abundant (Distillers and BP processes). Acetic acid can also be obtained with much higher selectivity (95-97%) from the oxidation of acetaldehyde by air at 60 °C and atmospheric pressure in an acetic acid solution and in the presence of cobalt acetate.361,558... 

Structural estuaries are formed by neotectonic (within the Quaternary period or past 1.8 My BP) processes such as faulting, volcanism, postglacial rebound, and isostacy that have occurred since the Pleistocene. 

Thermodynamically, the carbonylation of methyl acetate (AG298 -10 kJ/mol) is considerably less favourable than that of methanol (AG298 -74 kJ/mol). This means that the reaction does not reach completion but attains an equilibrium which is dependent on the temperature and the CO pressure. Two variants are currently practised commercially that developed by Tennessee Eastman, based on a Halcon process, and a BP process in which acetic acid and the anhydride are co-produced in proportions which can be varied according to demand. Syngas for the Eastman process is made from coal which is mined close to the plant in Tennessee and the acetic anhydride produced is used to make cellulose acetate for film production. The BP process uses syngas generated from North Sea gas which is piped directly to the BP plant in EIull. [Acetic anhydride manufacture M. J. Eloward, M. D. Jones, M. S. Roberts, S. A. Taylor, Catalysis Today, 1993, 18, 325]. 

Figure 1.2 Schematic representation of the BP process. (Reproduced by permission of TNO)...

Positive units, assigned a definitive cause and unrelated to the BPS process as practiced during routine product manufacture, have not been included. 

Ammoxidation refers to the catalytic oxidation of a feedstock with ammonia. When propylene is the feedstock, acrylonitrile is produced. Most of the world s acrylonitrile is based on the Sohio (now BP) process in which stoichiometric amounts of propylene and ammonia are reacted with a slight excess of air in a fluidized bed operated in the turbulent fluidization flow regime. The reactor temperature and pressure are 450° C and 1.5 bar, respectively. The reaction usually... 

The BP process, in which cyclohexanone is oxidized by hydrogen peroxide to form a peroxide intermediate which reacts with ammonia to yield 1, l -peroxydkydohexyl-araine. This compound decomposes into caprolactam and cyclohexanone which is recycled. 

Commercially, two plants used the BP process, one a converted 2000 bpd hydrotreater that came online in 1977,39 and the second a grass-roots plant built in 1983, but apparently shutdown in 1986.40 To the outside observer, the process seemed to suffer from the disadvantages shared with the urea process, namely that it could not handle the full scope of a refinery lube slate and incurred VI losses, and these may have been the reasons it (apparently) did not become more widespread. 

Continuous stirred-tank reactors (CSTRs) are used for large productions of a reduced number of polymer grades. Coordination catalysts are used in the production of LLDPE by solution polymerization (Dowlex, DSM Compact process [29]), of HDPE in slurry (Mitsui CX-process [30]) and of polypropylene in stirred bed gas phase reactors (BP process [22], Novolen process [31]). LDPE and ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymers (EVA) are produced by free-radical polymerization in bulk in a continuous autoclave reactor [30]. A substantial fraction of the SBR used for tires is produced by coagulating the SBR latex produced by emulsion polymerization in a battery of about 10 CSTRs in series [32]. The CSTRs are characterized by a broad residence time distribution, which affects to product properties. For example, latexes with narrow particle size distribution cannot be produced in CSTRs. 

Non-catalytic pyrolysis is carried out at 650-900°C and is designed to maximize the yield of fuel oils (Tukker et al., 1999). The process yields low-grade gasoUne or oil and is relatively inefficient. One of the most important of these, the BP process for instance, based on a fluidized bed reactor, is operated at SOO C in the absence of air. About 80% of the plastic is converted into a liquid mix of hydrocarbons (oil) and the remaining (8-10%) into a gas rich in monomers, under these pyrolysis conditions. A broad range of hydrocarbons ranging from C, to results from high-temperature thermolysis. 

BP processing of stripping analysis responses allowed the quantitative determination of heavy metals in the presence of interferences, and selectivity coefficients of berberine-selective electrodes were predicted satisfactorily. o BP networks were used to analyze piezoelectric crystal data to simultaneously determine sulfur dioxide concentration and relative humidity. 2 A BP network was used to model properties of materials. 2 x vo studies described the modeling and recognition of flow injection patterns. " Compared to principal components regression and partial least squares (PLS), BP provided a better method for multicomponent kinetic determinations. BP... 

Figure 3.7 Fully Intermeshing, co-rotating twin-screw extruder. BP Process Equipment Systems, Saginaw, Ml, USA.

Hazards of water, BP process safety series (Booklet 1), IChemE, 2004. 

As I ve already mentioned, BP s Sharing the Experience booklets are under-advertised, but ready-to-use image-rieh praetieal process safety materials that relate the experiences an operating eompat r has eolleeted over decades [8]. They are now marketed by IChemE under book publioations with the heading BP Process Safety Se-... 

BP Process Safety Series, Sharirrg the Experience, some titles were origirraUy pubhshed by Amoco (the earliest editions were first published in 1955 and entitled Process Safety Booklets ) and later by pubhshed by BP current issues now are available from the Institution of Chemical Engineers, in multiple booklets with various dates from 2004 to 2012. See www.ichem.org/bpsafetyseries. 

BP s Sharing the Experience booklets or BP Process Safety Series demonstrates BP and IChemE s ongoing commitment to process safety and best practices in the chemical manufacturing and petroleum refineiy business. They can quickly increase the reader s awareness of potential problems in industry. I believe these treasures are under-advertised in the US and at times difficult to obtain. 

Several competing fluidized-bed processes UNIPOL and BP processes compete Partial oxidation of butane competes with fixed-bed process Supplanted by fixed-bed process Highly exothermic, well suited to fluid bed Reactor/regenerator system Raises octane content while reducing benzene Converts olefins to C5+ hydrocarbons Ammoxidation of m-xylene Means of low-temperature oxidation with favorable heat transfer So far unable to displace fixed-bed in-furnace process... 

BP Process Oils Selection and Applications, British Petroleum, London, UK. 

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