China’s Wison Engineering debuts new technology, catalyst for butadiene

China-based Wison Engineering achieved a major breakthrough in the first-ever commercialization of its proprietary technology in butene oxidization and dehydrogenation to butadiene, as well as the relevant catalyst, the company announced today.

Wison Engineering’s proprietary technology and catalyst will be applied to the 70,000-tpy butene oxidization and dehydrogenation to butadiene revamping project of Shandong Yuhuang Chemical.

Wison Engineering provides proprietary technology transfer and services, the oxidative dehydrogenation catalyst, as well as basic and detailed engineering designs services for this commercial project. In the same period, Wison Engineering signed an engineering design and technology licensing contract with Shandong Shengrong Chemical for the 300,000-tpy alkylene separation unit. 

The group’s proprietary butane and butene separation technology employed in this project integrated with the aforementioned butene oxidization and dehydrogenation to butadiene technology to form a more comprehensive proprietary technology chain of Wison Engineering, enhancing the group’s overall technological capabilities.

“Technological innovation has always been a tenet of the group’s business strategy," said Zhang Xuzhi, senior vice president of Wison Engineering. "We have achieved breakthroughs in the commercialization of ethylene cracking furnace technology, olefin separation technology, coal-to-chemicals energy-saving technology, butane and butene separation, and butene oxidization and dehydrogenation to butadiene technology. 

"Wison is confident of leveraging its extensive experience in technology engineering and EPC project management, to achieve the commercialization of its proprietary technology and offer the industry technology and services of the highest value and quality," he added.

Wison Engineering commenced the research and development of butene oxidization and dehydrogenation to butadiene in February 2014, and underwent the engineering stages of catalysts research and production as well as process technology optimization. 

The excellent performance of the new catalyst for butene oxidization and dehydrogenation to butadiene can effectively reduce material consumption and energy consumption of the plant, according to company officials.. The new catalyst is marked by low temperature and a high level of activity, outstanding selectivity and reaction stability, achieving higher one-way conversion rate and yield rate, 3-4% and 2-3% higher, respectively, as compared with traditional technology. 

Meanwhile, Wison Engineering says it also conducted scientific research specific to the drawbacks of the current butadiene production plant, which include high costs, investments and process instability, to develop reactor technology suitable for large-scale production with a 100,000-tpy single butadiene production line. 

Its separation section adopts NMP extractive distillation technology that improves the yield of butadiene while greatly reducing the plant investment and energy consumption. In addition, this process technology also features the reuse of plant waste water and

catalyst’s regeneration on the production line.