Petrochemicals

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Scheme of a fuel refinery

Under petrochemicals (including petrochemistry , by ancient Greek Petros , Rock 'and Latin oleum , oil') refers to the production of chemical products from natural gas and the appropriate fractions of the oil .

history

The economic development during the Second World War suddenly caused a shortage of natural products (e.g. rubber ) that had to be substituted with artificial substitutes. The switch from coal to petrochemicals first took place in the USA and was mostly stormy.

Share of petrochemicals in total production of organic chemicals (in%)
United States Japan Western Europe FRG
1921 0.01 0 0 0
1930 6th 0 0 0
1941 21st 0 0 0
1950 50 0 4th 2
1960 88 4th 58 50
1965 94 74 68 61
1971 96 93 91 91

Economical meaning

Petrochemical plants have often been built near refineries because of their reliance on naphtha . The cracker capacity in Germany is approx. 5.8 million tons, the European cracker capacity is approx. 26.3 million tons. Ethylene producers and consumers are often connected by ethylene pipelines to compensate for fluctuations in production. The production of petrochemical products in Western Europe, Asia and North and South America in 2006 amounted to 55.3 million tons for ethylene , 35.6 million tons for propylene and 27.8 million tons for benzene . The petrochemicals turnover in Germany in 2007 was around 66 billion euros.

Petrochemical plant in Grangemouth , Scotland

Basic products and processes

The most important process in petrochemicals is steam cracking , in which ethane , LPG , naphtha , hydrowax , gas oil or other suitable hydrocarbons are cracked with residence times in the millisecond range, usually 200 to 500 ms, and temperatures between 800 and 850 ° C in the presence of steam. The gas phase of the steam cracker products contains the basic chemicals ethylene , propylene , the C4 cut (mainly butene , isobutene and 1,3-butadiene ) and isoprene . The liquid phase mainly contains aromatics ( benzene , toluene and xylenes ) and is also used as pyrolysis gasoline .

The steam reforming of refinery gases or light naphtha mainly supplies carbon monoxide and hydrogen for the production of methanol , ammonia , acetic acid and hydrogenation processes.

Overview of the most important processes for the conversion of hydrocarbons
Procedure Goal of the process Process conditions Other characteristics
Pressure (bar) Temperature (* C) catalyst Reaction component
Thermal visbreaking Process Lowering the viscosity of vacuum residues, easy conversion 5-18 450-480 / / simple conversion process; low investment
Delayed coking Production of gasoline and middle distillates 5 480 / / inevitable accumulation of petroleum coke
Thermal cracking Production of gasoline and medium distillates from heavy gasol 50 500 / / is still used occasionally today
Thermal reforming Increasing the octane number of gasoline 40 520 / / out of date today; replaced by catalytic reforming
Steam cracking Production of olefins atmosphere 850-900 H 2 O Joint production of high-aromatic pyrolysis gasoline and pyrolysis oil
High temperature coking Manufacture of metallurgical coke atmosphere 1200 / / Joint production of the aromatic raw materials tar and crude benzene
Bitumen oxidation Increasing the plasticity of bitumen atmosphere 280-300 / O 2 continuous process; is also used to blow pitch
Coal gasification Generation of synthesis gas 20-30 Max. 1000 / O 2 , H 2 O Aromatics accumulation in the smoldering area only with countercurrent flow of the reactants coal and air / steam
Hydrocracking Conversion of heavy oil distillates into gasoline and middle distillate 70-150 350-450 Mon, W H 2 very flexible conversion process; high investment, was originally developed for carbohydrate hydrogenation
Catalytic Reforming Increasing the octane number of straight-run gasoline 20th 500 Pt, Ir, Re most important source of aromatics in the USA; Hydrogen source
Catalytic Cracking (FCC) Conversion of heavy oil distillates into gasoline and middle distillates 0.5-1 500 Zeolite great importance for gasoline production, especially in the USA

Follow-on products

A large number of intermediate and end products are manufactured from the basic chemicals through various processes.

The most important secondary products are:

See also

Web links

Commons : Petrochemistry  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Petrochemistry  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Book of Petroleum, 1978.
  2. ↑ Statistics of the APPE ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.petrochemistry.net
  3. ↑ ChemgaPedia steam cracking .
  4. ^ Heinz-Gerhard Franck, Jürgen Walter Stadelhofer: Industrial Aromatic Chemistry: Raw Materials · Processes · Products . Springer, 1987, ISBN 978-3-662-07876-1 , pp. 100-101 .