Recently, the SINOPEC’s technical development project“Development and application of large styrene reactor and the vertical type combined heat exchanger” jointly undertaken by the SINOPEC Shanghai Engineering Co., Ltd. (SSEC) under the SINOPEC Engineering (Group) Co., Ltd. (SEG) and the East China University of Science and Technology has passed the appraisal of achievements organized by the Science and Technology Division of the Sinopec Corp.

The project team on the basis of preliminary technical research and industrial application study has launched the engineering scale-up study and developed the “?”type parallel layout of the vertical reactor-combined heat exchangers coupled with the technical scheme for optimizing the high-temperature piping system, the mixing technique involving the ultralow pressure-drop guide type nozzle mixer and the SMV type static mixer, the central guide distributor at reactor outlet, and the expansion joints in the tube box of intermediate heat-exchanger, which can form the technology for combining the large styrene reactor with the vertical type combined heat exchangers.

The said combination technology has been adopted in commercial scale in the 280 kt/a styrene unit. The result of application of this technology has revealed that the reactor,the feed mixer, and heat exchangers have complied with the design targets to meet the demand for recovering the heat energy from styrene azeotrope to attain the requirement for a pressure drop of less than 16 kPa in the reaction heat area.In the meantime, this technique has solved the problem of internal leakage of heat exchanger, and extended the operating cycle of the process unit to ensure that the average energy consumption indicator of the unit is better than the designed value recorded during the full load calibration period.