Ethylbenzene, cracking

Styrene (or vuiylbenzene) is prepared technicall by the cracking dehydre enation of ethylbenzene ... 

The ethylene feedstock used in most plants is of high purity and contains 200—2000 ppm of ethane as the only significant impurity. Ethane is inert in the reactor and is rejected from the plant in the vent gas for use as fuel. Dilute gas streams, such as treated fluid-catalytic cracking (FCC) off-gas from refineries with ethylene concentrations as low as 10%, have also been used as the ethylene feedstock. The refinery FCC off-gas, which is otherwise used as fuel, can be an attractive source of ethylene even with the added costs of the treatments needed to remove undesirable impurities such as acetylene and higher olefins. Its use for ethylbenzene production, however, is limited by the quantity available. Only large refineries are capable of deUvering sufficient FCC off-gas to support an ethylbenzene—styrene plant of an economical scale. 

A small fraction of the hydrocarbons decompose and deposit on the catalyst as carbon. Although the effect is minute ia terms of yield losses, this carbon can stiU significantly reduce the activity of the catalyst. The carbon is formed from cracking of alkyl groups on the aromatic ring and of nonaromatics present ia certain ethylbenzene feedstocks. It can be removed by the water gas reaction, which is catalyzed by potassium compounds ia the catalyst. Steam, which is... 

To this point the presence of ethylbenzene in the mixed xylenes has been ignored. The amount can vary widely, but normally about 15% is present. The isomerization process must remove the ethylbenzene in some way to ensure that it does not build up in the isomerization loop of Figure 8. The ethylbenzene may be selectively cracked (40) or isomerized to xylenes (41) using a platinum catalyst. In rare cases the ethylbenzene is recovered in high purity by superfractionation. 

Figure 3.24 shows the process flowsheet for an ethylene/ethylbenzene plant, Gas oil is cracked with steam in a pyrolysis furnace to form ethylene, low BTU gases, hexane, heptane, and heavier hydrocarbons. The ethylene is then reacted with benzene to form ethylbenzene (Stanley and El-Halwagi, 1995). Two wastewater streams are formed R ... 

Styrene (or viuylbenzene) is prepared technically by the cracking dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene ... 

When ethylene is reacted at 573 K in the presence of water in static conditions, oligomerization and conjunct polymerization give rise to paraffinic, olefinic and aromatic products (8). Nevertheless, the distribution of the aliphatics and aromatics is quite different from that of the steam-cracking products. In the former a great variety of products is formed they include propane, n-butane, isobutane and isopentane as aliphatics, and toluene, xylenes and ethylbenzene as aromatics (Figure 6B). 

Acrylonitrile is obtained from propylene and ammonia. 1,3-Butadiene is a petroleum hydrocarbon obtained from the C4 fraction of steam cracking. An overview on the issues of the production of butadiene is given in the literature (5). Styrene monomer is made by the dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene, which is obtained by the Friedel-Crafts reaction of ethylene and benzene. 

Styrene. All commercial processes use the catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene for the manufacture of styrene.189 A mixture of steam and ethylbenzene is reacted on a catalyst at about 600°C and usually below atmospheric pressure. These operating conditions are chosen to prevent cracking processes. Side reactions are further suppressed by running the reaction at relatively low conversion levels (50-70%) to obtain styrene yields about 90%. The preferred catalyst is iron oxide and chromia promoted with KzO, the so-called Shell 015 catalyst.190... 

Tphe excellent catalytic activity of lanthanum exchanged faujasite zeo-A lites in reactions involving carbonium ions has been reported previously (1—10). Studies deal with isomerization (o-xylene (1), 1-methy 1-2-ethylbenzene (2)), alkylation (ethylene-benzene (3) propylene-benzene (4), propylene-toluene (5)), and cracking reactions (n-butane (5), n-hexane, n-heptane, ethylbenzene (6), cumene (7, 8, 10)). The catalytic activity of LaY zeolites is equivalent to that of HY zeolites (5 7). The stability of activity for LaY was studied after thermal treatment up to 750° C. However, discrepancies arise in the determination of the optimal temperatures of pretreatment. For the same kind of reaction (alkylation), the activity increases (4), remains constant (5), or decreases (3) with increasing temperatures. These results may be attributed to experimental conditions (5) and to differences in the nature of the active sites involved. Other factors, such as the introduction of cations (11) and rehydration treatments (6), may influence the catalytic activity. Water vapor effects are easily... 

It is noted that Mo/DM is the best performing catalyst with the highest steady state activity and lowest deactivation rate. The deactivation rate is the lowest even under the influence of intense acid-catalyzed side reactions known to produce coke, i.e. oligomerization of styrene and cracking of ethylbenzene. Obviously, the high surface area and high connectivity of the support have played a determining role in the catalytic reaction. The effects they exert can be looked at in two ways ... 

Even (hough there are few direct end-uses foe ethylene, it is probably the most important petrochemical feedstock, both in terms of quantities used and economic value. Ethylene is the feedstock for ethylene oxide, ethylbenzene, ethyl chloride, elhylene dichloride, ethyl alcohol, and polyethylene, most of which, in turn, are used to produce hundreds of other end-products. Most elhylene is produced by sleam cracking of ethane or propane. 

As films are used e.g. the polymerization product of ethylbenzene and divinylbenzene (33) the copolymer of styrene and butadiene (755) the copolymer of styrene and butadiene mixed with polyethylene (157) a vulcanized or cyclized copolymer of an aromatic vinylcompound and an aliphatic conjugated polyene (2). As a crack resisting matrix is mentioned the copolymer of styrene, divinylbenzene and butadiene with e.g. dioctylphthalate as a plasticizer (176). Other examples are the copolymers of unsaturated aromatic compounds and unsaturated aliphatic compounds (77) and the reaction products of polyolefines and partially polymerized styrene (174). Primary groups can be introduced also with the help of Friedel-Crafts catalyst. Ts. Kuwata and co-workers treated a film of a copolymer of styrene and butadiene with an aluminium-ether complex and ethylenedichloride (79). Afterwards they allowed the film to react with trimethylamine. Another technique is the grafting of e.g. a polyethylene film with styrene (28). 

Fig. 20. Effect of activation temperature on catalytic activity. O, ethylene-benzene alkylation (160) , toluene disproportionation (157) A, n-hexane cracking (161) O, 1-methyl-2-ethylbenzene isomerization (158).

Feed stock for the first sulfuric acid alkylation units consisted mainly of butylenes and isobutane obtained originally from thermal cracking and later from catalytic cracking processes. Isobutane was derived from refinery sources and from natural gasoline processing. Isomerization of normal butane to make isobutane was also quite prevalent. Later the olefinic part of the feed stock was expanded to include propylene and amylenes in some cases. When ethylene was required in large quantities for the production of ethylbenzene, propane and butanes were cracked, and later naphtha and gas oils were cracked. This was especially practiced in European countries where the cracking of propane has not been economic. 

Newer catalysts of the fluoride type promise to be much more versatile. Essentially all ethylene from catalytic cracking was once burned as fuel but can now be utilized for the production of ethylbenzene using newer catalysts. 

Commercial polymerization was once used only for converting the olefins from cracked gases into motor fuel. However, it is rapidly becoming very important in the production of such petrochemicals as heptene, propylene dimer, trimer, tetramer and pentamer and the alkylated aromatics such as ethylbenzene, isopropylbenzene, cymene, and butyl-benzenes. This list may be expected to grow as new uses are found for the heavier olefins. 

Pyrolysis gasoline is a by-product of the steam cracking of hydrocarbon feeds in ethylene crackers. Pyrolysis gasoline typically contains about 50 to 70% by weight of aromatics, of which roughly 50% is benzene, 30% is toluene, and 20% is mixed xylenes (which includes ethylbenzene). 

---