My question is on Acetylene Selective Hydrogenation Catalyst (Palladium –Pd based with promoters):
Ethane gas gets cracked in the Cracking Furnaces and the effluent goes through series of processes that includes quenching, heavy contaminants / heavy hydrocarbons removals, Multi-stage Compression, Caustic Scrubbing with Drying leading to De-Ethaniser (DeC2), and DeC2 Column Overhead vapour to the Two-stage Acetylene Hydrogenation Reactors. Main feed Ethane gas has a spec. of CO2: 200 to 1000 ppm; Total Sulfur: 500 ppm; Moisture content: 100ppm and it is directly cracked in the Furnaces. There are other feed streams having Sulfur ppm in the range upto 50 or so, with metal traces at lower ppb levels. The Reactors are operated with Carbon Monoxide level of 1000 ppm to 3000 ppm Max or so, at the upset conditions. Outlet Acetylene ppm levels are stringent in the range of 0.2 to 0.3 to produce Ethylene with 1 ppm Max Acetylene impurity.
a) Pl. let me know what all process parameters have direct impact on Catalyst deactivation and thereby short run-time requiring ex-situ Regeneration.
b) How will you control the parameters effectively to have much longer Catalyst run-time?
c) What is normal catalyst run-time for such Catalysts irrespective of any Catalyst vendors?
d) Whether going for Regeneration, would it be recommended to revive activity and selectivity to that of fresh material? Any risk involved in taking decision in favour of Regeneration?
e) Vendors confuse often with jargons, Reactivation and Regeneration. Are they one and the same or the process of reviving the spent material to the active phase to prolong the operation with recycle not only due to downtime of plant but also, expensive nature of catalyst with precious metals?
f) Pl. suggest suitable catalyst vendors with whom development activity can be collaborated with the company’s R&D Centre.
g) Any other important points in relation to specific Catalyst poisons, improving run-time atleast upto 4-5 years if not 10 years+
Your thoughts on this, in whole or part, greatly appreciated.