(525e) Alternative Routes for Production of Propylene and BTX through Catalytic Cracking of Naphtha

Abstract: Demand of light olefins like propylene and ethylene is increasing day by day in petrochemical industries. Propylene is commonly produced as a byproduct of steam cracking of naphtha. The steam cracking units are more energy intensive as well as its propylene to ethylene weight ratio is also low (less than 1). Furthermore, much of the new steam cracking capacity is based on ethane feed, which produces little propylene, creating gap between future propylene supply and demand.  Therefore, there is an increasing need for producing propylene employing alternative method utilizing surplus naphtha, being widely available in refineries. The other important raw materials for polymer and other petrochemical synthesis are benzene, toluene and xylene (BTX). The worldwide demand for BTX has also been increasing continuously. Conventionally, in refineries, BTX is produced from catalytic reforming process from naphtha of specified quality. However, a refiner can increase the refinery margin by producing both light olefins and BTX from undesirable naphtha streams by alternate routes.

IndianOil R&D Centre offers a suite of naphtha cracking technologies that can help to meet the propylene and BTX demand, depending on the feed type, as follows.

Technology	Feed	Ethylene + Propylene, wt.% of fresh feed	BTX,  wt.% of  MS
INDALIN	Olefinic naphtha	40-45	40-45
INDALINPLUS	Any type of naphtha including paraffinic naphtha, condensates	2-3	55-65

 The present paper discusses the features and status of each of these technologies.

Keywords: Naphtha, Cracking, INDALIN, INDALINPLUS