Commercial Demonstration Unit for Manufacture of Aromatics from Toluene and Methanol with Coproduction of Low-Carbon Olefins Will Be Set Up

On November 29, 2013 the Shaanxi Coal Chemicals Technology Engineering Center, Ltd. (SCCTEC), the CNOOC Huizhou Refining and Chemical Company and the SINOPEC Luoyang Engineering Company, Ltd. signed an agreement on cooperation in development of an industrial demonstration unit for manufacturing aromatics from toluene and methanol (TMTA) in fluidized bed with co-production of low-carbon olefins, which has symbolized a successful step of this technology towards commercial application.

The TMTA technology uses toluene and methanol as the feedstocks to adopt the reaction process implemented in a fluidized bed coupled with specialized catalysts for manufacturing aromatics along with coproduction of lowcarbon olefins. In September 2012 based on the bench scale experiments in CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, SCCTEC has successfully completed the pilotscale tests of TMTA process, which has been evaluated by China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association as a process assuming an international advanced level of similar technology. It is told that this technology has opened a new feedstock route for aromatics production coupled with remarkable simplification of aromatics purification and separation procedures.

SCCTEC is a chemical technology development company formed as a consortium comprising the Shaanxi Coal and Chemical Industry Group Limited Liability Company and the CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics during successful commercial tests of DMTO process. SCCTEC currently boasts the circulating fluidized bed reactor units rated at 10 kt/a, 1.0 kt/a and 0.1 kt/a each, a 0.1 kt/a catalyst manufacturing unit, and several fixed fluidized microreactor units. Thus SCCTEC has successively developed the new-generation commercial technology for manufacturing low-carbon olefins from methanol in fluidized bed (DMTO-II), and the commercial technology for production of propylene via catalytic pyrolysis of mixed C4in fluidized bed (HiOlefin).