Poscochem recently commissioned this 121,000 metric ton/year aromatics plant in Kwangyang, South Korea.
Poscochem, a subsidiary of Pohang Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., has started up a 121,000 metric ton/year (mty) aromatics plant in Kwangyang, South Korea.
The plant, designed by Krupp Koppers GmbH, Essen, Germany, uses extractive distillation to convert crude coke-oven benzole to 105,000 mty benzene and 16,000 mty toluene.
The plant employs BASF AG's hydrorefining process. The olefins in the crude benzole are hydrogenated. Impurities, such as sulfur and nitrogen, are converted to gaseous components and removed in a stabilizer column.
In the extractive distillation unit, the aromatics are separated from the nonaromatics via Krupp Koppers' Morphylane process. The aromatics stream is then separated into its components--benzene and toluene.
The extractive distillation plant was the third to be built with two columns, rather than the usual three. The reduction in equipment reduces investment costs.
In the Seoul unit, as much as 30% of the benzole feed can be replaced with pyrolysis gasoline. This option increases both processing flexibility and unit capacity.
According to Krupp Koppers, benzene purity is 99.982 wt % and toluene, 99.100 wt %. Poscochem is achieving yields of 99.0 wt % for benzene and 99.3 wt % for toluene.
Krupp Koppers has three similar plants in the engineering and construction phases.
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