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What are the processes available for removing 1,3 butadiene from Butene-1? Who are the licensors and what points should be considered in process selection?
 
Answers
31/08/2007 A: Amarjit Bakshi, Refining Hydrocarbon Technologies LLC, abakshi@rhtgulfcoast.com
There are few Licensors who provide Selective hydrogenations of 1,3 Butadiene from Butene-1 stream to meet the requirements. The technology is based on essentially Palladium stabilized catalyst, Palladium/Ag catalyst or Carbon mono-oxide injection in the reactor to inhibit the isomerization of butene-1 to butene-2.
As is well known, under normal selective hydrogenation conditions of 1,3 butadiene the equilibrium is highly favored towards butene-2, so loss of butene-1 could be very high, hence catalysts are tailored for the application or carbon mono-oxide is used to inhibit butene-1 isomerization to butene-2. As mentioned above one can do the job to meet the Butene-1 hydrogenation requirements or there are new configurations provided by Refining Hydrocarbon Technologies LLC which use the stabilized catalyst and top to increase the butene-1 yield to convert the butene-2 to butene-1. It is also possible to use stabilized catalysts/ carbon mono-oxide injection to inhibit butene-1 to biutene-2 isomerization. Nickel catalyst can also be used to meet the requirements with new developments but conventional stabilized Palladium catalysts are the normal approach for
Butene-1 isomerization which is used as monomer in Polyolefins process in which case the di-olefin specification is normally < 10 wppm in butene-1.
Refining Hydrocarbon Technologies LLC provides answers to these with a new approach with smart configuration and Pd stabilized or Pd/ag catalyst and are cheaper than the technologies being offered in Capex/opex and yield can be enhanced.
Please see the Selective Hydrogenation article hydrogenation) in PTQ Q3 2007.......