Ethylene production volume

Most by-product acetylene from ethylene production is hydrogenated to ethylene in the course of separation and purification of ethylene. In this process, however, acetylene can be recovered economically by solvent absorption instead of hydrogenation. Commercial recovery processes based on acetone, dimetbylform amide, or /V-metby1pyrro1idinone have a long history of successfiil operation. The difficulty in using this relatively low cost acetylene is that each 450, 000 t/yr world-scale ethylene plant only produces from 7000 9000 t/yr of acetylene. This is a small volume for an economically scaled derivatives unit. 

Commercial production of PE resias with densities of 0.925 and 0.935 g/cm was started ia 1968 ia the United States by Phillips Petroleum Co. Over time, these resias, particularly LLDPE, became large volume commodity products. Their combiaed worldwide productioa ia 1994 reached 13 X 10 metric t/yr, accouatiag for some 30% market share of all PE resias ia the year 2000, LLDPE productioa is expected to iacrease by 50%. A aew type of LLDPE, compositioaaHy uniform ethylene—a-olefin copolymers produced with metallocene catalysts, was first introduced by Exxon Chemical Company in 1990. The initial production volume was 13,500 t/yr but its growth has been rapid indeed, in 1995 its combiaed production by several companies exceeded 800,000 tons. 

Butadiene is obtained mainly as a coproduct with other light olefins from steam cracking units for ethylene production. Other sources of butadiene are the catalytic dehydrogenation of butanes and butenes, and dehydration of 1,4-butanediol. Butadiene is a colorless gas with a mild aromatic odor. Its specific gravity is 0.6211 at 20°C and its boiling temperature is -4.4°C. The U.S. production of butadiene reached 4.1 billion pounds in 1997 and it was the 36th highest-volume chemical. ... 

The production volume of propylene tracks that of ethylene because they are simultaneously produced in the same plants. Usually, propylene sells for a somewhat lower price than ethylene, but this occasionally varies when derivative demands change. Prices for both stay relatively constant in the 25-30 cent/lb. range. 

Available statistics or market surveys about hydrogen capture the real production volumes only partially, as they usually consider only captive production, i.e., the directly produced hydrogen (e.g., in steam reformers), as for instance in refineries or fertiliser plants.1 Besides this, hydrogen is produced in significant amounts as a by-product from the manufacture of various chemical products, such as chlorine or ethylene, as well as from refinery processes (see also Section 10.9). Where this hydrogen cannot be internally utilised further, for instance for hydrogenation in... 

In the first process the yield does not exceed 65% of the starting compound due to simultaneous formation of 1,2-propanediol, while, in the second, a yield of 80% is obtained. Adding the fact that the market price of ethylene oxide is lower than acrolein, the Shell process can be regarded as economically more favorable. This is reflected in the much higher production volume reported for the production of 1,3-PD from ethylene oxide, which amounted to 45,000 t/a in 1999 as opposed to 9000 t/a from acrolein. The relatively high production costs with the acrolein process have probably induced the Dupont Company to invest in research efforts to further develop the biological process (see below). 

Perhaps the most important of these factors involves the raw material employed for this purpose and the by-product volumes and prices. In this connection we discuss the product distributions from potential various feedstocks and current trends in feedstock selection, illustrating the significant role feedstocks play in the ethylene commercial picture. In addition, the effects on production economics of the factors of plant size and severity of operation are investigated. 

The many factors involved in the ethylene production economics are interrelated in a complex manner. The more important variables relate to feedstock types and prices, by-product volumes and valuations, plant size, and severity of operation. 

Ethylene oxide is listed among the 25 chemicals of highest production volume in the U.S., whose production capacity is estimated at 6.1 billion lb/yr. This is about 43) of world production capacity (refs. 76a, b). At room temperature and atmospheric pressure ethylene oxide (ETO) is a colorless gas. Is has a characteristic odor, generally described at ether-like, whose detection threshold varies widely in humans. The mean detection threshold is estimated at 700 ppm (1260 mg/m3). It is miscible with water, alcohol, ether find most other organic solvents. 

Olefin copolymerisations, especially those of ethylene with propylene and/or another a-olefin, lead to copolymers that are of great practical importance the total production volume of such olefin copolymers is comparable with that of olefin homopolymers [30]. 

Other Chlorinated Ethylenes. Trichloroethylene was a major solvent for degreasing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since that time, its production has decreased from 500 million lb to 100 million lb in 1993 because of environmental pressures on the solvent users and replacement by 1,1,1-trichloroethane. Recently, trichloroethylene has recovered market share in metal cleaning due to the phasing out of 1,1,1 -trichloroethane in 1996. Also, the use as precursor for HFC-134a synthesis continues to increase. The production volume in 1998 was 245 million lb. 

Propanediol (1,3PD) is also undergoing a transition from a small-volume specialty chemical into a commodity. The driving force is its application in poly (trimethylene terephthalate) (PTT), which is expected to partially replace polyethylene terephthalate) and polyamide because of its better performance, such as stretch recovery. The projected market volume of PTT under the trade-names CORTERRA (Shell) and Sorona 3GT (Dupont) is 1 Mt a-1 within a few years. In consequence, the production volume of 1,3PD is expected to expand from 55kta-1 in 1999 to 360 kt a-1 in the near future. 1,3PD used to be synthesized from acrolein by Degussa and from ethylene oxide by Shell (see Fig. 8.8) but a fermentative process is now joining the competition. 

As can be seen, there is a small portion of ethylene produced in the gas. This small amount of olefin was sufficient for the early days of the chemical industry but soon became displaced by the larger production volume of olefins by steam cracking of ethane, LPG and naphtha from oil and gas sources. 

About 70% of PB production is used for the manufacturing of pipes for cold and hot water supply, and under-floor heating pipes. The remaining 30% of the production volume includes butene/ethylene random co-polymers and finds application in highly specialized and fragmented specialties markets, such as components in easy-peel films, process aids, and many others.878... 

From ethyl sulfate, and directly from ethylene, the latter predominating since 1970. Includes beverage alcohol, therefore is higher than the straight industrial product volume. 

Rodricks, J. V., and Brown, S. L. (1991). Ethylene oxide residues Toxicity, risk assessment, and standards. In Sterilization of Medical Products Volume V (R. F. Morrissy and Y. Prokopenko, eds.). Morin Heights, Canada Polyscience Publications. 

Weight of totgl product excluding methane, ethane, and ethylene, per volume of catalyst per unit time. In converter and ita acceasoriea only. 

The U.S. production volume of the aromatic polyester, poly(ethylene terephtha-late) (PET), is comparable to that of low-density polyethylene or polystyrene. The... 

Ethylene Coproduction. Historically, butadiene was first prepared in pilot plant quantities via an uneconomical electric arc process. However, the primary source of butadiene in the world today is as a by-product of thermal pyrolysis of hydrocarbon feedstocks in ethylene production. In the United States, production of coproduct butadiene exceeded that of on-purpose butadiene for the first time in 1977 and by 1990 high cost on-purpose butadiene production was essentially eliminated in the United States (Fig. 1) (46,47). In 1996, the total US production of butadiene was 1.75 million, 93% of which was co-produced (47). Steam cracking of hydrocarbons yields varying amounts of butadiene, depending on the nature of the feedstock, the volume of ethylene produced, and the severity of the cracking operations (48-50). For example, when feedstocks are switched from atmospheric gas oils and napthas to propane and butane, yields of butadiene drop by as much as 60% (51). 

Butadiene. Global consumption of butadiene monomer in 1996 was 7.5 million metric tons (1). The largest use of butadiene was for styrene-butadiene rubber, representing 28% of the total volume. Butadiene is manufactured in several different ways. The key industrial processes include recovery of butadiene from ethylene production as a by-product and dehydrogenation using either the... 

The main thermoplastic polymer types are actylic, cellulosic, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyamides (nylons), polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polycarbonate and polypropylene (PP). PET, PVC, HOPE, LDPE, PS and PP have a higher production volume and relatively low cost. The main thermosetting polymer types are aminoplastics, epoxies, phenolics (phenol formaldehyde), polyesters and silicones. These polymers have a wide range of applications and their features are very different. 

Ethylene is the most important intermediate in the chemical industry. The production volume was about 120 metric tonnes/year in 2007 and is expected to increase to approximately 180 metric tonnes/year by 2020 [1]. The main outlet for ethylene, roughly 60%, is used for polyethylene, followed by ethylene oxide, vinyl chloride and styrene. Ethylene oxide is a key material in the production of surfactants and detergents. It is mainly converted to ethylene glycol which ends up in, for example, polyethylene tereph-thalate and glycol ether solvents. Vinyl chloride and styrene are almost exclusively used to produce polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene, respectively. Ethylene is an intermediate for more than 50% of the polymer production volume. 

Ethylene is the base for the production of high-volume plastic ranges, including polyvinylchloride (PVC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), low-density polyethylene, linear low-density polyethylene, polyethyl, and high-density polyethylene. In 200 ethylene production was 109 million tons with an annual growth of 4.5% worldwide. The dehydration of bioethanol or the cracking of bionaphtha processes are actively used to produce ethylene. Bionaphtha can... 

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