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US 12,623,980 B2Granted
Separation of hydrogen, methane, ethane, and propane in naphtha to ethane and propane fractionation section based on a dividing wall fractionation column integration
AssigneeUop LLC
InventorsSudipta K. Ghosh, Xin X. Zhu, Kyle Cuellar
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Abstract
In a process of producing ethylene and propylene from naphtha the process a feed stream comprising hydrogen, methane, ethane, and propane and residual C4+ from a naphtha-to-ethane-and-propane reactor is fed to a dividing wall fractionation column.
Claims12
A process of producing ethylene and propylene from naphtha, the process comprising:
- passing a feed stream comprising hydrogen, methane, ethane, and propane and residual C4+ from a naphtha-to-ethane-and-propane reactor to a dividing wall fractionation column, wherein a top product stream is outputted by the dividing wall fractionation column, the top product stream comprising hydrogen, methane, and some slipped ethane (residual), a side product comprises an ethane rich stream, and a bottom product stream comprises propane and other heavy products, and
- passing a top product stream to a cracked gas compressor system of an ethane steam cracker, bypassing a cracking heater section of the ethane steam cracker.
An apparatus for producing ethylene and propylene from naphtha comprising:
- an effluent from a naphtha-to-ethane-and-propane processing unit which separates an ethane rich stream and a propane rich stream from a stream comprising ethane, propane, hydrogen, methane, and residual C4+ heavy hydrocarbons, the naphtha-to-ethane-and-propane processing unit comprising:
- a dividing wall fractionation column which receives the effluent stream from an naphtha-to-ethane-and-propane reactor and outputs a top product stream comprising hydrogen and methane, the ethane rich stream as a side product, and the propane rich stream comprising residual C4+ hydrocarbons as a bottom product,
- an ethane steam cracker configured to input the ethane rich stream from the dividing wall fractionation column and output a stream of ethylene,
- wherein the ethane rich stream is a vapor side product of the dividing wall fractionation column,
- wherein withdrawing the ethane rich stream as a vapor side product from the divided wall fractionation column lowers a refrigeration requirement for the divided wall fractionation column and reduces energy for vaporization in the ethane steam cracker,
- the apparatus further comprising:
- a depropanizer column configured to input the propane rich stream from the divided wall fractionation column, and
- a propane dehydrogenation unit configured to input an output product from the depropanizer column and output a stream of propylene.
5 more elements
A process of producing ethylene and propylene from naphtha, the process comprising:
- passing a feed stream comprising hydrogen, methane, ethane, and propane and residual C4+ from a naphtha-to-ethane-and-propane reactor to a dividing wall fractionation column,
- wherein the naphtha-to-ethane-and-propane processing unit further comprises a coldbox wherein the effluent passes through the coldbox upstream of the dividing wall fractionation column exchanging heat with incoming feed to dividing wall column.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.