09-12-2019

Honeywell technology to purify hydrogen for Zhejiang satellite C3 Oleflex™ facility

Honeywell today announced that Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is using a Honeywell UOP Polybed™ pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit to supply high-purity hydrogen to its integrated refining and petrochemicals complex in China. The PSA unit purifies hydrogen generated by its UOP C3 Oleflex™ propane dehydrogenation unit.

Zhejiang Satellite, which recently announced a second C3 Oleflex unit to meet the growing propylene demand in China, has used the PSA technology to upgrade the purity of hydrogen to meet refining needs. In addition to technology licensing, Honeywell UOP, a technology leader in the oil and gas industry, provided services, equipment, catalysts and adsorbents for the Satellite plant.

“In the last five years, we’ve worked with Zhejiang Satellite to construct new petrochemicals facilities centered around our Oleflex technology, which helped to maximize operating flexibility and onstream reliability,” said Bryan Glover, vice president and general manager, Petrochemicals & Refining Technologies at Honeywell UOP. “Their selection of our PSA technology further enhances the reliability of their operations and provides a steady, stable source of high-purity hydrogen.”

The PSA process uses proprietary UOP adsorbents to remove impurities at high pressure from hydrogen-containing process streams, allowing hydrogen to be recovered and upgraded to more than 99.9% purity to meet refining needs.

In addition to recovering and purifying hydrogen from steam reformers and refinery off-gases, the Polybed PSA system can be used to produce hydrogen from other sources such as ethylene off-gas, methanol off-gas and partial-oxidation synthesis gas. Polybed PSA systems are skid-mounted, modular units complete with hardware, adsorbents, control systems and embedded process technology, enabling quick and efficient installation to reduce cost and downtime.

Since its introduction in 1966, UOP has improved Polybed PSA technology with new generations of adsorbents, enhanced cycle configurations, modified process and equipment designs and more reliable control systems and equipment. Today, Honeywell UOP has installed more than 1,100 Polybed PSA units in more than 70 countries. As a result, Polybed PSA is a proven technology with dozens of large-scale unit references globally.

Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is the largest acrylic acid and acrylates manufacturer in China and one of the largest in the world. The company is an integrated manufacturer of propylene and downstream products manufactured from propylene. Its products include propylene, polypropylene, acrylic acid, glacial acrylic acid, acrylate monomers, polymer emulsion and super absorbent resins.