This invention relates to chemical engineering technology, particularly to a process for separating and recovering hydrogen, ethylene, ethane from the dry gas or separating ethylene cracked gas from dry gas of refinery plants in combination of hydrating separation technology with refrigerating separation or absorbing separation technology to separate and recover hydrogen, ethylene, ethane or separate ethylene cracked gas from the dry gas of refinery plants.
A refinery plant generally produces a great deal of dry gases, such as catalytic cracked gas and splitting gas. These dry gases are complicated in composition, and their major components mainly include H2, N2, CH, C2H4, C2H6 and CO2 and the like. These dry gases are gases mixture of low boiling point, wherein the components of H2 and C2 (such as C2H1 and C2H6) have high economic value, and the refinery enterprises, though having strong wishes to recover them, have not recovered them actually at present because the existing separation methods such as deep. freezing separation, absorption with tension variation, and film separation are not practical economically when they are applied in these systems.
As a cornerstone of petrochemical industry, the ethylene industry has been playing an important role in the national economy. Most of the existing ethylene works run under the pressure of capability expansion and profit promotion. The most complicated part of an ethylene device is the section of deep freezing for demethanation, which is the bottle neck in capability expansion and profit promotion for the whole device. The hydrating separation technology can exactly meet the requirements for separation of the above mentioned low boiling point gaseous mixture.
Hydrate is a kind of cage-type material formed up by water and small molecule gases (CH4, C2H6, CO2, N2, etc.) under a certain temperature and pressure conditions, wherein water molecules build up cages that are connected together with hydrogen bonds, and gas molecules stay in the cages to maintain their stability. Different gases are at different levels of difficulty to form up hydrate, so it can be adopted to separate gases with the gases that are easy to form up hydrate entering into hydrate first. Because generally only small molecule gases can form up hydrate, the hydrating method can only be adaptable to low boiling point gas mixtures. It is more effective to use traditional rectification to separate the gases mixture of which the boiling point is not so low. The greatest advantage of hydrating method is that the low boiling point gases can be separated at the temperature above 0° C., while the traditional : rectification method requires very low temperature to do so, for example, with the latter method, methane and hydrogen should be separated at −160° C. while methane and ethane should be separated at −110° C.
In order to overcome the disadvantage of the prior art, the object of present invention is to provide a process for recovering hydrogen, ethylene, ethane from dry gas or separating ethylene cracked gas from dry gas of refinery plants, wherein the hydrating separation is combined with the freezing or absorbing separation so as to separate multiple gases mixture, comprising the steps of:
According to the present invention, a selective thermodynamic accelerant is added into circulating water in the hydrating separation. The selective thermodynamic accelerant includes tetrahydrofuran, ethylene oxide, cyclopentane and acetone, preferably tetrahydrofuran. The said tetrahydrofuran is added as selective thermodynamic accelerant in water in amount of 5% to 15% in mol density.
In the present invention, a dynamic accelerant is also added into circulating water in the hydrating separation in amount of 500 mg/liter to 800 mg/liter in aqueous phase. The dynamic accelerant includes sodium lauryl sulphate (SDS), and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS).
The present invention is also to provide a combined process for recovering hydrogen, ethylene, ethane from the dry gas or separate ethylene cracked gas of refinery plants, wherein the first and second hydrating separations are combined with the refrigerating or absorbing separation so as to separate multiple gases mixture, comprising the steps of:
According the invention, both the first and second hydrating separations include the procedures wherein the gases mixture reacts with water to generate hydrate and the hydrate decomposes and releases water and gases respectively in the hydrate reactor and hydrate decomposer, water is circulated between the hydrate reactor and hydrate decomposer.
A selective thermodynamic accelerant is added into the circulating water in the first hydrating separation. Such selective thermodynamic accelerant includes tetrahydrofuran, ethylene oxide, cyclopentane and acetone, preferably tetrahydrofuran. The said tetrahydrofuran is added as selective thermodynamic accelerant in water in amount of 5% to 15% in mol density.
According to the invention, dynamic accelerants are also added into the circulating water both in the first hydrating separation and the second hydrating separation in amount of 500 mg/liter to 800 mg/liter in aqueous phase. The said dynamic accelerants include sodium lauryl sulphate (SDS), and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS).
In addition, the absorbents are also used in the absorbing separation and include light oil, methyl alcohol and tetrahydrofuran; the operating temperature ranges from −30° C. to 0° C., the pressure is 1˜3 Mpa during the separation.
The advantages of the invention are given below:
The invention having the combination of processes is applicable to the following two aspects:
The invention is to provide a group of processes used to recover hydrogen, ethylene, ethane or separate ethylene cracked gas from the dry gas of refinery plants, and promote the efficiency to extract the gases of high economic value from the dry gas or cracked ethylene gas of refinery plants and save energy for a further step.
At first, first hydrating separation includes that before entering the tower type hydrating reactor, the raw gases are pre-pressurized and pre-cooled; the pressure is not lower than 5 Mpa and the cooling temperature is 1-4° C. Then the raw gases enter the reactor from its bottom, and the gases in their upward movement contact continuously with the downward moving water solution containing thermodynamic accelerant and dynamic accelerant and they generate. hydrate. Because a selective thermodynamic accelerant such as tetrahydrofuran is added into hydrating reactor 11 to lower the generating pressure of hydrate, and at the same time, tetrahydrofuran can also occupy the big apertures in hydrate lattice so as to dramatically suppress the bigger molecules like those of ethane or ethylene to form hydrate and sufficiently separate methane and ethylene as well as ethane from each other. A dynamic accelerant is also added into the water solution to promote hydrate's generating speed and prevent the system from being jammed.
Two material streams are obtained in hydrating reactor I, one of the streams is the gaseous stream mainly containing hydrogen, ethane and ethylene led out from the top of the reactor and it enters the freezing or absorption separation system to separate hydrogen and C2 components (ethane and ethylene). The other stream is a kind of solution formed up by hydrates and the water solution that has not taken part in reaction. This stream enters hydrating reactor I for decomposition to release gases and water solution. The water solution after decomposition returns to the top of the reactor after cooling for circulating use. A little amount of C2 components are contained in the gases released from decomposition and should be recovered further.
The second hydrating separation includes that the gases coming from hydrating decomposer II are let into hydrating reactor tower 2. During up-going, the gases enter tower-type hydrating reactor 21 from its bottom and keep contacting stage by stage reversibly with the downward moving water solution containing dynamic accelerant to generate hydrate. With different pressure for different gases to generate hydrate, C2 components in small amount in the gases are separated from the other gases. The components that are easy to generate hydrate (C2 components) are turned into hydrate and are mixed up with the water solution to turn into solid mixtures. The remaining gases (CH4, N2, CO2) are exhausted from the top of hydrating reactor I and leave from the separation system. The solid mixture is sent to hydrating decomposer II to decompose into water solution and gases mixture with relatively high contents of C2 components. The gases mixture is pressurized and sent back to the bottom of hydrating reactor I to recover C2 components. And then the water solution is sent back to hydrating reactor II for circulating use after being cooled.
If freezing separation method is adopted to separate the mixture of hydrogen and C2, then the gases (the mixture of hydrogen, ethylene and ethane) that come from the top 5. of tower hydrating reactor I and have not turned into hydrate should be frozen to −10˜−20° C. with an external freezer to get separated liquid and gases, they should be further frozen to lower their temperature, then be throttled and sent into the freezing separation device to get hydrogen and C2 components.
With absorption separation adopted, the gases (the mixture of hydrogen, ethylene and ethane) that come from the top of tower-type hydrating reactor and have not turned into hydrate are directly sent into the absorbing separation device, and hydrogen and C2 components can be obtained after absorption and de-absorption.
In addition, a dynamic accelerant can be added in the circulating water solution in both the said first and second hydrating separations. That is to say, the dynamic accelerant can be added into the water solution to accelerate hydrate. generating speed and suppress hydrate grains to mass and jam the system in the first separation process and the second separation process.
The first hydrating separation is carried out by adding the selective thermodynamic accelerant into circulating: water solution to promote the formation of hydrate of ethane and nitrogen and the like and to suppress the formation of hydrate of components of target product such as hydrogen, ethylene as well as ethane in order to increase efficiency of the separation and decrease the operating pressure.
The thermodynamic accelerant makes it easier for gases to turn into hydrate. Table 1 shows the data of pure methane hydrate generation conditions in the water solution of 6% (mol percentage) tetrahydroflran, while. Table 2 supplies equilibrium data of methane hydrate generation in pure water.
Table 1 and Table 2 indicate that the pressure for generation of methane hydrate is dramatically decreased with addition of thermodynamic accelerant.
The selective thermodynamic accelerant used in the first hydrating separation is avoided to be used in the second hydrating separation so as to ensure that ethane and ethylene turn into hydrate prior to nitrogen.
Dynamic Accelerant
Promotion Effect of Dynamic Accelerant on Methane Hydrate Generation:
Promotion Effect of SDS on Ethylene Hydrate Generation:
As is shown in
Gases mixture with methane and ethane was prepared in laboratory, the gases was put in a stirring volume-variable reactor containing tetrahydrofuran (TFT) water solution to generate hydrate. When the reaction reaches balance, the composition of gaseous components in gas phase was analyzed and was sampled for analysis of decomposition components. The results as shown below:
Note:
In the table, y1 and x1 respectively stand for ethane mol percentage in gas phase and ethane mol percentage in hydrate.
As is shown in the tables, because selective suppressor-accelerant THF is used in the process of hydrating separation, the phase balance constants of ethane are reversed, and the maximum density difference between two phases reaches 64%. Higher THF density is favorable in suppressing ethane to turn into hydrate so as to lower the content of ethane in the phase of hydrate and promote the distributing coefficient of ethane. in two phases.
Gases mixture with methane and ethane was prepared in laboratory, the gases was put in a stirring reactor of fixed volume containing TFT water solution to generate hydrate.
When the reaction reaches balance, the composition of gaseous components in gas phase was analyzed and sampled for analysis of decomposition components. The results of the experiments are as shown in Table 5.
Note:
In the table, Z1, Y1 and X1 respectively stand for mol percentage of ethylene in the inlet gas, mol percentage of ethylene in gas phase, and mol percentage of ethylene in hydrate phase.
From above table it indicates that ethylene density in gas phase is dramatically increased after one -stage separation of hydrate.
In light of gas separation in ethylene production and recovery of hydrogen and C2 components from refinery dry gas, experiments were carried out under different conditions for hydrate single-stage one-time separation, with the experimental results listed in Table 6. The table indicates that compared to the raw gas, methane density in gas phase is dramatically decreased, while the major element in solid phase (hydrate phase) is methane. This shows that hydrating method can remove methane in gas phase obviously and recover and condense the components with high economic value like hydrogen and C2.
In order to examine multi-stage separation effects, twice-separation experiments were conducted with the product in gas phase listed in Table 4 with the hydrating method and the results are as shown in Table 5. Table 5 shows that methane in gas phase is further decreased dramatically with time times of separation while the ratio of C2 and methane in gas phase is increased, which indicates C2 has been further condensed (if hydrogen is deducted).
Although the present invention has been described hereinabove by way of preferred embodiment thereof, it can be modified without departing from the spirit and nature of the subject invention as defined in the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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200410047916.9 | Jun 2004 | CN | national |