Alternative technology for reducing bromine index value of industrial benzene feedstock

Abstract

AbstractAlternative technology for reducing the bromine index value, which represents trace impurity of unsaturated hydrocarbon, in the industrial benzene feedstock was systematically developed in this study using the adsorption approach. Effects of different physicochemical properties of MCM‐22, Na‐Y, HY, and ZSM‐5 on the reduction of the bromine index value were investigated under ambient temperature and pressure. It was found that the molecular sieve approach by using the medium pore size zeolite and strong interaction between the adsorbent and unsaturated hydrocarbon by using the lower SiO2:Al2O3 molar ratio were the key factors for designing the right adsorbent for this industrial application. Most of unsaturated hydrocarbon impurity was finally removed from the industrial benzene feedstock resulting in nearly zero of the bromine index value after passed through the right adsorbent with maximum adsorption capacity of 78.6 wt%. Adsorption's active site was also determined in this study revealing that this adsorption technology was active site insensitive process. This adsorption technology has been started up in the commercial scale by SCG Chemicals since 2010 which can overcome various drawbacks of the existing technology. © 2016 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.