Location: Heilongjiang Province, China

Start-up time: 2013

Background:

The original capacity of acrylonitrile plant was 50 Kt/a and capacity had increased to 80 Kt/a after first reconstruction. Recently, however, absorber was high foaming for higher capacity, hence more defoamer would be used and operation was not stable. Customer wanted to improve operation stability, reduce consumption of defoamer and meet requirements for efficiency of absorption.

Solution:

Process was simulated according to basic data to perform hydraulic calculation. The results indicated that packing sections had almost flooded. High performance structured packing from ZEHUA was replaced and all other related internals were able to reuse.

Result:

The unit was stable in operation after it was started-up. Consumption of defoamer went an apparent decline. Capacity was increased by more than 15%.