III International Conference

PP-III-72DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL CATALYST AND REACTOR FOR STYRENEPRODUCTION PROCESSKotelnikov G.R., Shperkin M.I., Sidnev V.B., Bespalov V.P., Kachalov D.V.,Komarov S.M., Kuzhin А.V.Joint Stock Company Research Institute «Yarsintezз» (JSC RI «Yarsintez»), Yaroslavl, RussiaE-mail: yarsintez@yaroslavl.ruThe researches and industry implementation results on effective catalyst and reactorsystem for styrene production process are given. The work was done at JSC RI «Yarsintez»and implemented at commercial plants of Russia in 2003-2005. The catalyst is characterizedby a new effective chemical composition and new patented geometry of granules. The newestachievements of process simulation, the kinetic data on ethylbenzene thermal decompositionand experience of commercial plants operation have been used at reactor design development.The volume of the commercial production with the application of new catalyst is ∼ 30 %, andwith the application of new reactor design ∼ 48 % against the total styrene production inRussia.Styrene is one of the major large-capacity products of petroleum chemistry, widely usedmonomer for polystyrene, plastics and rubbers production. In the period since 2003 thesignificant changes in the progress of commercial styrene production took place in Russia:according to the technology of JSC RI «Yarsintez» there was started up a new large styreneproduction by ethylbenzene dehydrogenation under vacuum at JSC «Salavatnefteorgsyntez»with the capacity of 200 000 MTPY in 2003 and the styrene production unit of 100 000MTPY capacity was modified and started up in 2005 at CSC «Sibur--Khimprom» with furtherprospect of capacity increase up to 120 000 MTPY with process transfer to the vacuumalternative also.The great work on the development and improvement of new catalysts and apparatusesdesign for styrene production process is performed at JSC RI «Yarsintez». As a result theeffective alternative of the catalyst KDE-1 for ethylbenzene dehydrogenation was developed.The new combination of all KDE-1 catalyst components allows significantly increase catalystactivity, selectivity and thermal stability. In industry the catalyst provides the selectivity onstyrene more than 95 % wt. at pressure below atmospheric one; the catalyst has been patentedand is produced at JSC RI «Yarsintez». New granules geometry of KDE-1 catalyst incomparison with catalyst of cylinder shape allows to reduce the hydraulic resistance by ∼ 15% and at the same time to increase the ratio of the external surface to weight unit whichadditionally increase the catalyst efficiency.604