Economics of petrochemical

However, in contrast to fuels, petrochemicals intermediates must be produced at extremely high purities. For example, CO at ppm levels will poison polyethylene catalysts, and acetylene in ethylene at this level will produce a crosslinked polymer that will have unsatisfactory properties. Therefore, the chemical engineer must produce these intermediates with extremely high purities, and this requires both careful attention to minor reactor products and to efficient separation of them from the desired product. These factors are also important in the economics of petrochemicals. 

The chemical industry typically involves much more high technology but smaller reactors because one usually desires to produce a single molecule as an intermediate to make a particular product. These molecules usually can be sold for a much greater price than gasoline so the extra value added in the petrochemical processing industry justifies the increased sophistication and cost of these reactors. The costs of separating the desired product from reactants and undesired products can dominate the economics of petrochemical processes. 

The primary economic barrier to commercialization may not be the fermentation but rather the separation of 2,3-BD from the media. It does not separate well by distillation, and chemical conversion of 2,3-BD in the broth and subsequent distillation are costly (Afschar et al. 1993). Other separation techniques that have been examined include salting out (Afschar et al. 1993) and countercurrent steam stripping (Garg and Jain 1995). Continued fermentation and downstream improvements and a change in the economics of petrochemicals may at some future date make 2,3-BD production from a bioprocess economically attractive. 

Propylene has many commercial and potential uses. The actual utilisation of a particular propylene supply depends not only on the relative economics of the petrochemicals and the value of propylene in various uses, but also on the location of the supply and the form in which the propylene is available. Eor example, economics dictate that recovery of high purity propylene for polymerisation from a smaH-volume, dilute off-gas stream is not feasible, whereas polymer-grade propylene is routinely recovered from large refineries and olefins steam crackers. A synthetic fuels project located in the western United States might use propylene as fuel rather than recover it for petrochemical use a plant on the Gulf Coast would recover it (see Euels, synthetic). 

Heat transfer is perhaps the most important, as well as the most applied process, in chemical and petrochemical plants. Economics of plant operation often are controlled hy the effectiveness of the use and recovery of heat or cold (refrigeration). The service functions of steam, power, refrigeration supply, and the like are dictated hy how these services or utilities are used within the process to produce an efficient conversion and recovery of heat. 

Ethylene is sometimes known as the king of petrochemicals hecause more commercial chemicals are produced from ethylene than from any other intermediate. This unique position of ethylene among other hydrocarbon intermediates is due to some favorable properties inherent in the ethylene molecule as well as to technical and economical factors. These could be summarized in the following ... 

Use of renewable feedstocks is most likely where they can compete economically with petrochemically derived materials. This already happens in many areas, and it is sometimes forgotten that even in a world that seems to be dominated by chemicals and materials from fossil carbon and other non-renewable sources, industry already uses annually 19.8 MT of vegetable oils, 22.5 MT starch, 28.4 MT of plant fibres and 42.5 MT of wood pulp. These all compete on price and performance with synthetic alternatives. 

Even individual segments of the chemical industry have a very large economic importance. As one example, an Arthur D. Little study has estimated that 23 percent of all business sales, 16 percent of all capital investment and 19 percent of total non-government related jobs are dependent on the production of petrochemicals ( 1). According to this study, 35 to 45 percent of United States business activity is directly or indirectly affected by the American petrochemical industry. 

Chapter 7 gives a review of the technology and applications of zeolites in liquid adsorptive separation of petrochemical aromatic hydrocarbons. The application of zeolites to petrochemical aromatic production may be the area where zeolites have had their largest positive economic impact, accounting for the production of tens of millions of tonnes of high-value aromatic petrochemicals annually. The nonaromatic hydrocarbon liquid phase adsorption review in Chapter 8 contains both general process concepts as well as sufficient individual process details for one to understand both commercially practiced and academic non-aromatic separations. 

We are also dealing with simple molecules. Frequently, the issue is simply how can one produce a desired set of products from limited available set of raw materials. Reaction paths should be short and highly selective otherwise the purification steps destroy the economics of the process. Separations, principally distillation, already consume 50% of the energy used in the petrochemical industry. 

The electrical potential and/or current required for electroenzymatic treatment have been shown to be lower than those needed in electrochemical treatment, which are not economically viable for large-scale. Electroenzymatic oxidation by peroxidases was proposed for the oxidation of veratryl alcohol by LiP [40], Then, electroenzymatic reactors have been used for the treatment of petrochemical wastewater [91], dyes, and textile wastewater [90, 92, 118] and phenol streams [93] utilizing peroxidase immobilized onto inorganic porous Celite beads or directly onto the electrode. The integration of a second electrochemical reactor, which generated hypochlorite in the presence of sodium chloride, has been used for indirect oxidation of the reaction products of the electroenzymatic treatment [91]. 

In Europe, of course, it was difficult to show such disregard for market laws. The views of the European Economic Community Commission in Brussels had to be taken into account, and they upheld the principle of free competition as set down in article 85 of the Rome Treaty. Moreover, in Western Europe there were a number of petrochemical industries that operated according to the rules of private capitalism while there were others, as in France, Italy, Austria, Norway, and Finland, that were state-controlled and more concerned about retaining market share than ensuring profitability. 

The economics of large gas plants (>1000 MMscfd gas) is of importance in understanding the production cost of ethane and LPG for petrochemical feed and to shed light on the economic drivers in refinery and petrochemicals operations. Because of the large flow of gas, these plants produce large volumes of natural gas liquids . 

A technical and economic appraisal of petrochemicals spans several large subject areas petroleum and oil industry economics, petrochemical refining and applied chemistry, chemical engineering and process economics. Unfortunately these distinct fields carry their own units. The petroleum industry generally uses American units based on standards defined at 60° Fahrenheit and are generally the units used in the US chemicals industry. Most chemists and academic engineers use... 

If the cations are hydrogen ions (see Section 3.2.4.), guest molecules may add to them to give, for example, hydronium, ammonium, oxonium, or carbenium cations. The latter two may rearrange, and then decompose or dissociate to give product(s) which can leave the zeolite. Oxonium ions in particular are central to the most economically important processes of petrochemical industry. In simpler words, hydrogen zeolites are very important catalysts. 

Chemical Market Associates, Inc. (CMAI), Houston, TX. Provides market intelligence with such information as worldwide capacities, production prices, and process economics of various petrochemicals in either single-or multiclient studies. Multiclient studies are available to subscribers. 

A monomer of nyion-11, commercialized by ATO Chem, under the name of Riisan, U-aminoundecanoic add is prepared from castpr. oil. Hence its manufacture does not strictly form part of the field of petrochemicals. It is nevertheless discussed here to provide an example of synthesis from biomass, and for technico-economic comparisons with nylon-12, which has comparable properties, and whose monomer is of petrochemical origin., "... 

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