PETROCHEMICAL ENGINEERING

ELECTIVE IV (409352)
Presented By
Dr. Yennam Rajesh
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
 Elective IV (409352): Petrochemical engineering
Teaching Scheme: Examination Scheme: 100 Marks (Credits;3)
Lecture: 3 Hours/Week In Semester Marks:30
End Semester Marks:70

 Unit I: Introduction to petrochemical, petrochemical industry in India, basic raw

material for petrochemical synthesis and their sources, preparation of feedstock for
petrochemical production, main building blocks of petrochemical industry. (7h)

 Unit II: First generation raw material like olefins, aromatics, naphthenes. production
of aromatics, naphthenes and other hydrocarbon feedstock, aromatic separation into
B,T,X. (7h)

 Unit III: Production of low molecular weight olefins by hydrocarbon cracking,

furnaces, separation techniques and purification. (7h)
 Unit IV: Combining olefins and aromatics to produce second generation intermediates
such as glycols, amines, acids, ketones that can be used also as solvents and
formulating agents. (7h)

 Unit V: Polymers: bulk, engineering and speciality, types of polymerization such as

bulk, emulsion and suspension etc, at least two polymeric products and manufacture
from each class, few examples (flow sheet, applications) of polymers like polyester,
nylon, etc. (7h)

 Unit VI: Integration of refinery and petrochemical plants with power generation,
pollution control – norms and methods of elimination, brief description on safety
considerations. (7h)
 Reference Books:

 Modern Petroleum Technology, Hobson and Pohl, Vol. I & II, John Wiley and Sons,
New York.

 Introduction to petrochemical industry and refinery by Speight, Encyclopedia of Life

Support systems.

 Dryden’s Outline of chemical industry, M Gopal Rao, M Sittig, East –West press.

 Petrochemical Process Technology, ID Mall, Macmillan India Ltd., New Delhi

 Modern Pertoleum Refinery Engineering , Bhaskar Rao, published by Aman Dhanani.

 Petrochemical Industries
 Petrochemical company in our INDIA
 HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.)
 IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.)
 IPCL (Indian Petro Chemicals Ltd.)
 BPCL (Bharath Petroleum Corporation Ltd.)
 RIL (Reliance Industries Ltd.)
 ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation )
 MRPL (Mangalore Refinery and Petroleum Ltd.)
 SHELL
 ESSAR
 MANALI PETROCHEMICAL Ltd.
 SOUTH ASIAN PETROCHEM LTD
 SUPREME PETROCHEM LTD.
 Petrochemical Industries
 Petrochemical company in the world:

 BASF. (Germany ) .

 Dow Chemical. (USA) .

 ExxonMobil Chemical. (USA ) .

 Lyondell Basell Industries (LBI) (Netherlands ) .

 INEOS. (UK) .

 Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) (Saudi Arabia) .

 What a petrochemical industry do..?
 The petrochemical industry is concerned with the production and trade of petrochemicals.
 A major part is constituted by the plastics (polymer) industry, then synthetic fibre / yarn,
polymers, Synthetic Rubber (elastomers), Synthetic detergent intermediates.
 It directly interfaces with the petroleum industry, especially the downstream sector

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 What is a petrochemical…?
 About 5 % of the oil and gas consumed each year is needed to make all the petrochemical
products.
 Because of low cost and easy availability, oil and natural gas are considered to be the main
sources of raw materials for most petrochemicals.
 Petrochemicals play an important role on our food, clothing, shelter and leisure.

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 1. Food
2. Clothing

3. Shelter
5. Quality of life
4. Health care

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 Indian Petrochemical Industry

Manali Petrochemicals Limited (MPL)

Union carbide Reliance petrochemical division

Supreme petrochem ltd (SPL)

South Asian Petrochemical Ltd. NOCIL

Indian Petrochemical Corp. Ltd.

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Rain Industries Limited (RAIN)
 Structure of petrochemical industry
Raw materials

Basic building block processes

Basic Chemicals

Hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine

mixed acids Unit Processes

Polymers Synthetic fibres Synthetic Intermediate & miscellaneous

Rubbers products
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 Petrochemicals Feed Stock

Natural gas, condensate, refinery

gases, Coal, Bed methane

Naphtha, solvent extract,

middle distillates

Coal, coke, residues

Agricultural residue, algae

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 Alternative Feed Stocks

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 Alternative Feed Stocks

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 Major End Products

Polymer, Synthetic fibre, synthetic rubber, synthetic detergent, Chemical intermediate, dyes
and intermediates chemical intermediates, pesticides

Basic Building Block Process

 Cracking: Steam cracking, Catalytic cracking for olefins pyrolysis gasoline by product
 Steam reforming and Partial oxidation: Synthesis gas
 Catalytic Reforming: Aromatic production
 Aromatic conversion processes: Aromatic production
 Alkylation: Linear alkyl benzene
 OXO Process: Oxo-alcohol
 Polymerisation Process: Polymer, elastomers and synthetic fibre

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 Basic Petrochemicals
C1 Group
• Methane, CO-H2 synthesis, synthesis gas and derivatives

C2 Group
• Ethane, ethylene, ethylene derivatives, acetylene

C3 Group
• Propane, propylene and propylene derivatives

• Butadiene, Butanes, Butenes, Pentane, Pentene, Isoprene, Cyclopentadiene

C4, C5
Group

• Benzene, Toluene , Xylenes Naphthalene, BTX derivatives

Aromatic
Group

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 Chemicals from C1 compounds

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 Methanol

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 Method of production
 Steam reforming-natural gas
 Catalytic hydrogenation of syngas- CO and H2
 Oxidation of LPG to give oxygenated hydrocarbon, co-product of which is methanol
1. Steam reforming

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 2. Catalytic hydrogenation of syngas

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 Catalytic hydrogenation of syngas
 H2 and CO adjusted to molar ratio of 2.25 - The mixture is compressed to 200 – 350 atms
 Recycle gas (Unreacted feed) is also mixed and sent to the compressor
 Then eventually the mixture is fed to a reactor. Steam is circulated in the heating tubes to maintain a temperature
of 300 – 375 oC.
 After reaction, the exit gases are cooled and After cooling, phase separation is allowed.
 In this phase separation operation methanol and other high molecular weight compounds enter the liquid phase
and unreacted feed is produced as the gas phase.
 The gas phase stream is purged to remove inert components and most of the gas stream is sent as a recycle to the
reactor.
 The liquid stream is further depressurized to about 14 atms to enter a second phase separator that produces fuel
gas as the gaseous product and the liquid stream bereft of the fuel gas components is rich of the methanol
component.
 The liquid stream then enters a mixer fed with KMNO4 so as to remove traces of impurities such as ketones,
aldehydes etc.
 Eventually, the liquid stream enters a distillation column that separates dimethyl ether as a top product.
 The bottom product from the first distillation column enters a fractionator that produces methanol, other high
molecular weight alcohols and water as three different products.
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 Formaldehyde
 Some major intermediates derived from formaldehyde are chelating agents, acetal
resins, 1,4- butanediol, polyols, methylene diisocynate.
 It is also used for the manufacture of wide variety of chemicals, including sealant,
herbicides, fertilizers, coating, and pharmaceutical.
 Formaldehyde is commercially available as aqueous solution with concentration
ranging from 30-56 wt.% HCHO.
 It is also sold in solid form as paraformaldehyde or trioxane.
 The production of formaldehyde in India has been growing at a fairly constant rate
during last ten years.
 There are presently about 17 units in India.
 Installed capacity and production of formaldehyde during 2003-04 was 2.72 lakh
tonnes and 1.89 lakh tonnes respectively.
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 Physical properties of Formaldehyde
Property Value
Molecular Weight 30.03 g/mol
M.P. -118 deg.C
B.P. -19 deg.C
Density 0.815 (-20 deg.C)
Explosive limits Lower=7 vol.% in air and Upper=73vol% in air

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 Formaldehyde Production from Methanol
 Catalytic oxidation- hydrogenation of methanol
 Oxidation of methane or LPG to give oxygenated hydrocarbon co-product in which
formaldehyde is separated with difficulty.
 Introduction:
 In this lecture, will discuss the production technology for Formaldehyde is produced from
methanol
 In the below reactions, the first and third are exothermic reactions but the second reaction is
endothermic. The reactions are carried out in vapour phase.
 Catalyst: Silver or zinc oxide catalysts on wire gauge are used.
 Operating temperature and pressure: Near about atmospheric pressure and 500 – 600 oC.
Reactions:

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 Formaldehyde Production from Methanol

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 Formaldehyde Production from Methanol
 Air is sent for pre-heating using reactor outlet product and heat integration concept.

 Eventually heated air and methanol are fed to a methanol evaporator unit which enables the

evaporation of methanol as well as mixing with air. The reactor inlet temperature is 54 oC.

 The feed ratio is about 30–50 % for CH3OH: O2.

 The mixed gases are preheated and sent to the reactor where silver or copper gauge or their

oxides are catalyst.

 Catalyst activity is controlled to maintain a balance between the endothermic dehydrogenation

and exothermic reactions at 450–900oC.

 Since formaldehyde + rich water is produced in the absorption, a portion of the rich water

absorbent solution from the absorber is partially recycled at a specific section of the absorber.
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 Formaldehyde Production from Methanol

 From the absorber, HCHO + methanol rich water stream is obtained as the bottom product.

 The stream is sent to a light end stripper eventually to remove any light end compounds that

got absorbed in the stream.

 The vapors from the light end unit consisting of light end compounds can be fed at the

absorption unit at specific location that matches with the composition of the vapors in the
absorption column.

 Eventually, the light end stripper bottom product is fed to a distillation tower that produces

methanol vapour as the top product and the bottom formaldehyde + water product (37 %
formaldehyde concentration).

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 Major engineering problem
 Methanol conversion
 Choice of space velocity

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 Ammonia Synthesis
Steam Reforming:
Steam reforming concept based on natural gas is considered to be the most dominating and
best available technique for production of ammonia, as the steam reforming process accounts
for over 80% of the world’s ammonia production.

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 CH4 + H2O ↔ CO + 3H2
CO + H2O ↔ CO2 + H2

CO + H2O ↔ CO2 + H2

CO + H2O ↔ CO2 + H2
74% H2, 24% N2, 0.8% CH4, and 0.3%

N2 + 3H2 ↔ 2NH3

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 Chloro-methanes
Introduction:
 Chloromethanes namely methyl chloride (CH3Cl), Methylene chloride (CH3Cl2),
Chloroform (CHCl3) and Carbon Tetrachloride (CCl4) are produced by direct chlorination
of Cl2 in a gas phase reaction without any catalyst.
Reactions:
CH4 + Cl2------------- CH3Cl + HCL
CH3Cl + Cl2-----------CH2Cl2 + HCL
CH2Cl2 + Cl2----------CHCl3 + HCL
CHCl3 + Cl2------------CCl4 + HCL
 The reactions are very exothermic.
 The feed molar ratio affects the product distribution.
 When CH4/Cl2 is about 1.8, then more CH3Cl is produced.
 On the other hand, when CH4 is chosen as a limiting reactant, more of CCl4 is produced.
 Therefore, depending upon the product demand, the feed ratio is adjusted

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 Chloro-methanes

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 Method of production
1. Direct thermal chlorination of methane
2. CH3Cl by reaction of CH3OH and HCl
3. CCl4 by reaction of CS2 and Cl2

Uses:
 Solvents
 Synthesis of some HC containing F and Cl

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 Direct thermal chlorination of methane

35 Engineering problem: Reaction control

 Direct thermal chlorination of methane
Methane and Cl2 are mixed and sent to a furnace
The furnace has a jacket or shell and tube system to accommodate feed pre-heating to desired
furnace inlet temperature (about 280 – 300 oC).
To control temperature, N2 is used as a diluent at times.
Depending on the product distribution desired, the CH4/Cl2 ratio is chosen.
The product gases enter an integrated heat exchanger that receives separated CH4 (or a mixture of
CH4 + N2) and gets cooled from the furnace exit temperature (about 400 oC).
Eventually, the mixture enters an absorber where water is used as an absorbent and water absorbs the
HCl to produce 32 % HCl.
The trace amounts of HCl in the vapour phase are removed in a neutralizer fed with NaOH
The gas eventually is compressed and sent to a partial condenser followed with a phase separator.
The phase separator produces two streams namely a liquid stream consisting of the chlorides and the
unreacted CH4/N2.
The gaseous product enters a dryer to remove H2O from the vapour stream using 98% H2SO4 as the
absorbent for water from the vapour.
The chloromethane enter a distillation sequence. The distillation sequence consists of columns that
sequentially separate CH3Cl, CH2Cl2, CHCl3 and CCl4.
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 Chemicals from aromatics

First generation raw materials

Olefins
Aromatics
Naphthenes.

Production of aromatics, naphthenes and other hydrocarbon feedstock

Aromatic separation into (B,T,X) Benzene, Toulene, Xylene.

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 Composition of Petroleum
 Crude Oil
 Crude oil is a multicomponent mixture consisting of more than 108 compounds.
 Petroleum refining refers to the separation as well as reactive processes to yield various valuable products.
 Therefore, a key issue in the petroleum refining is to deal with multicomponent feed streams and
multicomponent product streams.
 Usually, in chemical plants, we encounter streams not possessing more than 10 components, which is not the
case in petroleum refining.
 Therefore, characterization of both crude, intermediate product and final product streams is very important to
understand the processing operations effectively.
 The elementary composition of crude oil usually falls within the following ranges.

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 The elements like Sulfur, Nitrogen and Oxygen are usually treated as impurities because of their inherent properties like odor, color, corrosiveness etc
 Overview of Refinery Process
Primary crude oil cuts in a typical refinery include gases, light/heavy naphtha, kerosene,
light gas oil, heavy gas oil and residue.
From these intermediate refinery product streams several final product streams such as fuel
gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, auto diesel, lubricants,
bunker oil, asphalt and coke are obtained.
The entire refinery technology involves careful manipulation of various feed properties
using both chemical and physical changes.
Conceptually, a process refinery can be viewed upon as a combination of both physical and
chemical processes or unit operations and unit processes respectively.
Typically, the dominant physical process in a refinery is the distillation process that enables
the removal of lighter components from the heavier components.
Other chemical processes such as alkylation and isomerisation are equally important in the
refinery engineering as these processes enable the reactive transformation of various
functional groups to desired functional groups in the product streams.
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 Overview of Refiney Process

40 Atmospheric Distillation Unit

 Overview of Refinery Process

 Actually the intermediate products that we are

directly getting from Primary units are no use to
the costumers.
 We need to go for some secondary unit operations
to get valuable products that are useful to the
consumers
41 Vaccum Distillation Unit
 Overview of Refinery Process

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 Crude Chemistry
Based on chemical analysis and existence of various functional groups,
refinery crude can be broadly categorized into about 9 categories
summarized as:
Paraffin's :
Paraffin's refer to alkanes such as methane, ethane, propane, n and iso butane, n
and iso-pentane.
These compounds are primarily obtained as a gas fraction from the crude
distillation unit.

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 Crude Chemistry
Olefins:
Alkenes such as ethylene, propylene and butylenes are highly chemically
reactive.
They are not found in mentionable quantities in crude oil but are encountered in
some refinery processes such as alkylation.

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 Crude Chemistry
Naphthenes:
Naphthenes or cycloalkanes such as cyclopropane, methyl cyclohexane are also present in the
crude oil.
These compounds are not aromatic and hence do not contribute much to the octane number.
Therefore, in the reforming reaction, these compounds are targeted to generate aromatics
which have higher octane numbers than the naphthenes.

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 Crude Chemistry
Aromatics:
Aromatics such as benzene, toluene o/m/p-xylene are also available in the crude
oil.
These contribute towards higher octane number products and the target is to
maximize their quantity in a refinery process.

Benzene (C6H6)
O-Xylene (C8H10) M-Xylene (C8H10)
46 Toluene (C7H8) P-Xylene (C8H10)
 Crude Chemistry
Naphthalenes:

Polynuclear aromatics such as naphthalenes consist of two or three or more

aromatic rings.

Their molecular weight is usually between 150 – 500.

Naphthalene
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 Chemicals from aromatics
 Benzene, toluene, xylene and naphthalenes

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 1. Benzene

Uses: solvents, production of phenol, styrene, aniline, detergents etc

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 2. Toluene
 Uses- Solvents, detergents, chemicals- benzyl chloride, benzoic acid etc

3. Xylene
 Produced from petroleum reforming
 Uses; solvents, chemicals

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 4. Naphthalene

 Source: coal
 Uses: for Phthalic anhydride

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 Hydrodealkylation
Benzene production using hydrodealkylation route:
Toluene does not have much market value.
Therefore, Toluene is reacted with H2 to produce Benzene and Methane
Main reaction:
Toluene (C7H8) + H2------------Benzene(C6H6) + Methane (CH4)
Reactor operating conditions: 600 – 650 oC and 35 – 40 atms
Catalyst: Chromia on porous carrier.
Other reactions: Alkyl aromatics + H2………. Benzene + Alkanes
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 Hydrodealkylation

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 Hydrodealkylation
 Side reactions:
 Toluene ---------------------Diphenyl + H2
 Toluene + Benzene --------Methyl diphenyl
 Toluene + H2------ --------Alkanes (Cracking reaction)
 Description:
 The process corresponds to a simple reactor-separator-recycle system facilitated with heat integration.
 Alkyl-aromatics (Toluene's and other higher order alkyl aromatics) along with makeup H2 and recycle
stream consisting of unreacted toluene is allowed to enter a feed pre-heater.
 The feed pre-heater increases the temperature of the reactants at the desired pressure.
 After the reaction, the reactor products are cooled using heat integration concept by exchanging heat with
the cold feed stream.
 Further cooling of the stream is carried out using a water based cooler.
 The stream enters a phase separation unit where the fuel gas components such as H2 and CH4 are
removed as vapour stream.
 The liquid stream consists of H2, CH4, Light ends, Benzene, Toluene, Diphenyl and other higher order
aromatics.
 The vapour stream is partially purged and to a large extent recycled as the stream has good amount of H2.
 The gas phase purge stream is for controlling the concentration of methane in the reactor.
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 Technical Questions
 1. Despite removing H2 and CH4 from the phase separator, why again we remove them from the gas
stripper unit?
 Ans: This is due to the basic problem in the difficulty of sharp equilibrium factors which do not exist for
these components. The equilibrium separation factors in a phase separator unit where the governing
pressure and temperature dictate the distribution of components in the liquid and gas stream. Mostly
methane and H2 are removed as vapour stream in the unit. But still at the pertaining pressure and
temperature of the phase separator, some lower order alkanes stay back in the liquid stream. Therefore,
gas stripping is carried out to remove these.
 2. Comment upon fuel efficiency in the process and possibilities to enhance it?
 Ans: The process should indicate maximum fuel efficiency. This can be achieved by a) Heat integration of
feed and product streams to the reactor b) Re use of fuel gas streams as a fuel in the pre-heating furnace. If
these two options are followed, then the process has maximum fuel efficiency and can be regarded to be
very energy efficient.
 3. Do you suggest toput one more distillation column for the heavy end compounds. If so why?
 Ans: Yes, putting one more distillation column will separate toluene + diphenyl from other heavy end
compounds. While diphenyl acts towards favouring forward reaction, the other heavy end compounds
could tend to produce more coke during the reaction. Therefore, one more distillation unit to separate
toluene+diphenyl from the heavy end compounds is recommendable

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 Hydrodealkylation
 Converts toluene and dialkylbenzene to benzene

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 Phenol

58 : Not feasible commercially

 Phenol manufacture from Toluene Oxidation

Reactions

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 Phenol manufacture from Toluene Oxidation

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 Phenol manufacture from Toluene Oxidation

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62
 Phenol manufacture from Toluene Oxidation
 Description:
 Fresh and recycled toluene first enter the oxidation reactor
 The oxidation reactor is a gas-liquid reactor in which air is sparged through a column of liquid (toluene)
 To reduce side reactions, toluene is used as a limiting reactant
 The catalyst is fed to the reactor along with the toluene stream
 After reaction, several products are formed including undesired impurities such as benzaldehyde, benzyl alcohol,
benzyl benzoate, CO and CO2 The reactor is facilitated with vent after cooling and partial condensation of the air
mixed hydrocarbon vapour stream.
 The liquid product from the reactor then enters a distillation column which separates toluene from the other
organics
 The organics then enters a hot water wash unit where hot water extracts benzoic acid. All other impurities don’t
dissolve in water and leave the wash unit as heavy ends
 The benzoic acid rich hot water stream is sent to a crystallizer where benzoic acid crystals are formed. - The
benzoic acid crystals are once again washed with water to obtain benzoic acid crystals
 The benzoic acid crystals are then melted and fed to the second oxidation reactor.

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 Phenol manufacture from Toluene Oxidation
 The second oxidation reactor is fed with air and cupric benzoate catalyst. Steam is also added to the reactor so as
to enhance the temperature of the reactants quickly.
 Once again gas liquid reaction is facilitated. Cooling is facilitated by using a jacket or cooling tubes.
 From the reactor two phases are obtained namely vapour and liquid
 The vapour and liquid both consist of phenol and therefore, both are subjected to series of separation steps to
extract phenol and enrich the same.
 The vapour enters a fractionating tower which separates the unreacted benzoic acid from other compounds. The top
product is obtained after partial condensation followed by phase separation. The phase separator produces three
streams namely the vent stream (that consists of N2, CO and CO2), the aqueous water + phenol stream and the
organic crude phenol stream. The crude phenol stream is partially sent as a reflux to the fractionators and
withdrawn as a product as well.
 The bottom product from the second oxidation reactor consists of organic compounds and is sent to water wash.
After water wash, heavy compounds such as tar are removed and phenol is dissolved in water. This water + phenol
mixture is mixed with the water + phenol mixture obtained from the fractionators separating benzoic acid.
 The crude phenol is fed to a fractionator to obtain purified phenol as bottom product and phenol + water mixture as
a top product. The top product here is an azeotrope.
 The phenol + water coming from three different sources is allowed to enter a distillation column that generates
water waste as a top product and a crude phenol stream as a bottom product.
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 Manufacture of phenol using hydro chlorination route

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 Manufacture of phenol using hydro chlorination route

 In this process, Benzene is used to extract phenol from phenol +water mixture. This unit is
termed as an extraction unit (liquid liquid extraction principle). Therefore, this unit takes up
fresh benzene and phenol + water mixture and produces two streams namely water stream
(bottom product) and benzene + phenol stream (top product).
 The water stream is fed to a scrubber unit (i.e., Unit B that will be described later).
 Then onwards, the organic mixture is fed to a distillation column that produces purer benzene
as the top product. The bottom product is phenol with other impurities.
 The bottom phenol rich product is sent to the phenol fractionator to obtain waste product as
top product and pure phenol as bottom product.
 The purer benzene then enters the hydrochlorination reactor in which a mixture of HCl and
O2 is fed at 220 oC. Under these conditions, Benzene will be also in vapour state. Therefore,
the reactor is a gas solid reactor.
 The conversions are pretty low and not more than 20 % of the benzene is converted to benzyl
chloride.
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 Manufacture of phenol using hydro chlorination route
 Eventually, the products are sent to two fractionators that separate unreacted benzene, crude benzyl
chloride and poly benzyl chlorides as various products. The unreacted benzene is sent back to the
hydrochlorination reactor as a recycle stream. The crude benzyl chloride then enters an absorber unit A
where phenol is used to purify the benzyl chloride from other organic compounds (such as benzene and
polybenzyl chlorides).
 The purified benzyl chloride stream then enters the hydrolysis reactor in which water is passed along with
benzyl chloride over the silica catalyst. The reactor itself is a furnace with catalyst loaded in the tubes and
hot fuel gases are circulated in the shell to obtain the desired higher temperature.
 Under these conditions, both reactants are in vapour state (with the benzyl chloride boiling point of 179oC)
and therefore, the reaction is also a gas solid reaction.
 After hydrolysis reaction, the product vapors are sent to a partial condenser that separates the HCl from the
organic phase.
 The HCl is recycled to the hydrochlorination reactor.
 The phenol rich product stream is sent as a solvent for the scrubber (unit A) that purifies crude benzyl
chloride to purer benzyl chloride. The bottom product from the scrubber (i.e., unit A) enters another
scrubber (unit B) that receives water from the extractor.
 The unit B enables washing of the phenol to remove any water soluble impurities. The water from the unit
B enters the hydrolysis reactor.
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68
 Styrene and Phthalic Anhydride Production
Introduction
In this lecture we present the process technology for the production of styrene and pthalic
anhydride
Styrene is produced from benzene via the ethylbenzene route followed by dehydrogenation
Pthalic anhydride is produced from Napthalene and o-Xylene
We first present the process technology associated to styrene production
Styrene

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 Method of production
 Dehydrogenation of ethyl benzene
 Hydrogenation-dehydration of acetophenone

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71
 Phthalic anhydride

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 Method of production
Oxidation of naphthalene and/or o-xylene

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 Manufacture Of Phthalic Anhydride

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 Maleic anhydride
Introduction :
In this last lecture for the petrochemicals module, we demonstrate the process technology
for Maleic anhydride and DDT.
Maleic anhydride is manufacture from benzene by butane oxidation
DDT is a pesticide and is manufactured from benzene, chlorine and ethanol using sulphuric
acid as a catalyst.
We next present the process technology for maleic anhydride. Along with this compound,
fumaric acid is also produced as another product.

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 Maleic anhydride

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 Method of production
 Oxidation of benzene or n-butene

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 Manufacture of Maleic Anhydride
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 Manufacturing of DDT
DDT refers to Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
DDT is produced by a reaction between monochlorobenzene and chloral in the presence of
Oleum as catalyst.
Monochlorobenzene + Chloral ------ DDT + H2O
Therefore, to prepare DDT, first we need to prepare Chloral and purify it to the highest
standard.
Chloral is prepared by first forming chloral hydrate using chlorination of benzene route.
The reaction for chloral is presented as:
4 Cl2 + C2H5OH + H2O → Cl3CCH(OH)2 + 5 HCl
Then chloral hydrate is allowed to distill in the presence of sulphuric acid which dessicatesthe
chloral hydrate to chloral.
Uses: DDT is mainly used as a pesticide.
DDT was the first of the modern insecticides. However, the use of this chemical has been
restricted to some degree due to its harmful ill effects.
Manufacturing of DDT