Biobutanol
Biobutanol is being developed as the next generation biofuel. It has several potential advantages over ethanol including low vapor pressure and tolerance to water contamination. It also offers better fuel economy than gasoline-ethanol blends. DuPont and BP have formed a partnership to make and market biobutanol, first in Britain and eventually in the United States.
By making biobutanol through large scale fermentation, DuPont hopes to drive down the cost of biobutanol so that it is competitive with ethanol. This report will compare the process economics of biobutanol and ethanol.
Biochemical Cellulosic Ethanol
In 2007, the US Department of Energy announced that it would grant $385 million to six companies to build commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plants. Four of the six projects are biochemical routes to ethanol including routes being developed by Abengoa, BlueFire, Poet Energy (formerly Broin) and Iogen. A variety of biomass feedstocks are being considered such as agricultural wastes and municipal solid waste.
In this report we will compare the process economics of several biochemical routes to fuel ethanol. Biomass feedstocks to be considered include corn stover and wheat straw.
Bioplastics
Over the past two decades, huge strides have been taken towards developing commercial processes for manufacturing bioplastics. Polylactide (PLA) and polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) are two leading bio-derived polyesters available commercially. Not only are they bio-derived, but they also offer some properties superior to petrochemical derived plastics.
In this report we will review the production of PLA and PTT. Included in the analysis will be the biomonomers used to produce them, lactic acid and 1,3-propanediol.
Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE)
Fast growing LLDPE has reached a maturity level in developed economies such as North America and Europe. However, the continuing development of production technology brings a considerable complexity of new aspects. These include a variety of catalysts including both single site and the traditional Ziegler and the use of comonomers other than the traditional C4, C6 and C8. This is of particular interest due to the expected shortfall in the C8 range.
This report will focus on the technologies and catalysts offered by several of the major licensors: Borealis’ Borstar, Bassell’s Spherilene, Univation’s Unipol, Nova Chem’s Sclaritec and Innovene-Ineos.
Aromatic Processes
Most benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX) are recovered from highly aromatic reformate and pyrolysis gas streams. Increased bitumen upgrading will supply additional aromatic rich pyrolysis naphtha. Under the current environmental mandates to reduce the benzene in the gasoline pool, the production of benzene for use in other products is increasing. In the United States the benzene in the gasoline pool is regulated to very low levels. As low levels become the global standard, benzene will be reacted away or recovered and purified for downstream reprocessing. In recent years, the refining and petrochemicals industries have found extractive distillation, followed by solvent recovery, to reduce the investment cost of BTX recovery. Revamping to extractive distillation from liquid-liquid extraction is claimed to increase purities, recoveries and capacity while decreasing environmental impacts.
We will review developments in the technology and evaluate the process economics for the production of BTX aromatics such as by the extractive distillation and liquid extraction processes from catalytic reformate feedstock.
Heavy Oil from Tar Sands
Current Canadian tar sands production of one million barrels per day is expected to triple in the next ten years. Processes for upgrading Athabasca tar sands to pumpable synthetic crude oil include mined retort technology and in-situ steam assisted gravity drainage technology, both with hydro-treating.
We will present representative process designs and economics for upgrading tar sands to synthetic crude oil.
Residue Hydrotreating
Hydrocracking plays a major role in producing low sulfur fuels, petrochemical feedstocks and lubricating oils. Hydrocracking of residue oils for producing middle distillates is an important process in producing clean, low sulfur diesel and kerosene (jet fuel) as well as low sulfur heavier fuel oils. Refining of heavy crudes containing metals, sulfur, nitrogen, coke precursors and aromatics in the distillation residue oils will continue to increase. Extensive research in recent years has improved hydrocracking catalysts.
We will examine hydrocracking of heavy oils mainly to produce middle distillates. New catalysts and technology developments in hydrocracking residue oils will be reviewed. The process economics of a generic residue oil hydrocracking process will be evaluated as a grass-roots unit.
Linear Alpha Olefins
The commercial production of linear alpha olefins, straight chain hydrocarbons with a double bond in the terminal or alpha position dates back to the 1960s. The main outlets are in the plasticizer (C6-C10) and detergent (C10-C16) carbon length ranges. Linear alpha olefins are commercially produced exclusively by ethylene oligomerization. Producers in North America and Europe dominate, but the Middle East is becoming attractive as a production location. SABIC is developing process technology with announced plans to soon commercialize production of linear alpha olefins in Saudi Arabia.
This study examines the SABIC LAO technology, presents the design of a commercially viable plant, and compares the resulting economics to the conventional processes held by Shell, Chevron and BP. It is an update of PEP report 12D issued in 2001.
Propylene Production
Propylene demand is expected to grow faster than that for ethylene for the next 10 years. Propylene demand is also expected to grow faster than demand for petroleum-based fuels. Since propylene is produced almost exclusively as a by-product of either ethylene manufacture or petroleum refining there has been concern that supplies of propylene will be tight in the coming years. Two promising options are the KBR Superflex process and the UOP Oleflex process. The KBR Superflex process is a fluidized catalytic cracking technology that converts low-value streams such as mixed butenes, pentenes in ethylene plants and FCC light gasoline and coker gasoline streams in refineries with a high degree of selectivity to light olefins. It is licensed by KBR and is based on Lyondell Chemical Company's developments and patents. This technology can be used for stand-alone production units or integrated into existing olefins plants. The first commercial Superflex unit is currently under start-up for SASOL in South Africa. The JiHua Propylene Unit in China will be the second one. The UOP Oleflex process is a catalytic dehydrogenation technology for the production of light olefins from their corresponding paraffins. One specific application of this technology produces propylene from propane. The UOP Oleflex process was first commercialized in 1990, and by 2004 more than 1,250,000 metric tons per year of propylene were produced from commercial Oleflex units.
In this report we will evaluate the process economics for propylene production via the KBR Superflex and UOP Oleflex processes.
Carbon Capture from Coal-Fired Power Generation
Carbon dioxide, which causes global warming, is emitted industrially from refineries, petrochemical plants, cement, iron and steel manufacturing plants, and electric power plants. The prospect of global climate change is a matter of genuine public and private concern. From the viewpoint of the amount of emission, power plant flue gases account for the largest portion. Thus, the recovery of CO2 from power plant flue gas is very important for preserving the global environment by way of prevention of CO2 emission.
CO2 capture and storage or sale offer a new set of options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that can complement the current strategies of improving energy efficiency and increasing the use of low carbon or non-fossil energy resources. In this report we intend to concentrate on evaluation of technology alternatives for capturing CO2 from large scale (200 - 400 megawatt) gas turbine power plants of the type recently installed in California, USA, to deal with the Enron energy trading scheme fiasco.
This report will review and evaluate three principle technology alternatives for reducing gas turbine power plant CO2 emissions including direct fired post combustion gas scrubbing; pre-combustion decarbonization of natural gas whereby natural gas is converted to hydrogen and CO2 by reforming, with hydrogen used as a combustion fuel to drive turbo-generator sets; and the use of oxyfuel created by separating oxygen from air and burning hydrocarbons with oxygen to produce a turbine exhaust with high concentration of CO2 for capture and storage.
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