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New Relationships
Kellogg Brown & Root teamed with Xytel Corporation on a turnkey project for the design and construction of a newly developed continuous catalyst/oil slurry injection system. This system is designed to feed the main reactor in a polypropylene manufacturing process. The customer chose modular construction to better control the project schedule, minimize production interruptions, shorten the start-up time and achieve a more compact design.
The unit includes all of the process equipment, instrumentation, piping, junction boxes, conduit, wires, insulation, utility stations, structure, hand rails, stairway, lights, electric hoist, roof and even included an eye wash station and a fan to keep workers cool. 3D CAD was used as a visual tool to give the customer a better idea of the actual look of the module they were to receive. The unit measured 20 ft long by 12 ft wide by 27 ft high and was shipped in two pieces.
The project took approximately 24 weeks from award to system start-up. On-site set-up took only 5 days with minimal disruption to existing production.
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Polyolefins
Xytel has completed another in a long series of multipurpose polymerization pilot plants. The latest is a 100 kg/hr unit for the production of high performance polypropylene for a client in Shanghai, China.
The unit was designed with flexibility in mind. It revolved around 2 loop reactors followed by a vapor phase reactor and could be re-configured into various flow patterns. The system had feed modules for monomers (polypropylene, ethylene, and comonomer), catalysts and co-catalyst, and various additives (antistatic, antioxidant, and antifouling agents). The product polymer was processed through multiple driers, separators, and flash tanks to react and recover all process propylene and comonomer.
Instrumentation, including 3 gas chromatographs, was used to perform accurate control of the process as well as heat and mass balances. Control and data acquisition were performed by a Honeywell PlantScape® DCS package.
The skids of the pilot plant had a foot print of 44 feet by 36 feet and topped out at 24 feet.
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Advance Catalyst Evaluation Units - ACE™
Four new ACE™ micro reactors were built for FCC catalyst
evaluation in 2001. Two ACE R+ units with Kayser Technology's
new reactor design were shipped in late 1999, one to Petrobras,
Brazil, and the second to Akzo's Pasadena, Texas facility. Three
ACE R+ units with new reactor designs were built in the second
half of 2000. The unit for CCIC in Japan was commissioned in
late August.
The first ACE model P unit was commissioned at Formosa Petrochemical during the first quarter
of 2000. Units for Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP) in China and Bharat Petroleum were commissioned in 2001.
Learn more
about ACE™
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Petrochemicals and Chemicals
Xytel has supplied a second cutting edge pilot plant to the Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo (IMP) Research Center in Mexico City. The first was the 1997 ebullated bed hydrocracking pilot plant project based on the technology of Hydrocarbon Technologies Inc. (HTI - Lawrenceville, NJ).
This time, the project was a Davison Circulating Riser (DCR) Pilot Plant based on the licensed technology of W.R. Grace & Co. — Conn. The Pilot Unit not only had the standard DCR riser reactor, but also was equipped with a Xytel designed second reactor operating in downflow mode. Downflow reactors are used to obtain shorter reaction contact times in order to run under more severe conditions.
This is the second DCR Pilot Unit which Xytel has supplied with the reactor running in a downflow mode. The first was in Xytel´s project completed for the Petroleum Energy Center (Japan) at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM - Dhahran, Saudi Arabia). That Unit has been operating successfully since 1998 and has undergone several process modifications as the research has progressed.
Xytel’s project scope for IMP included the design and fabrication of the Pilot Unit, GCs and control system. Xytel was also responsible for shipment, and set-up, start-up and commissioning of the Unit at IMP’s facility. The project was started up and formally accepted in late 2001.
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