Successful Commercial Application of High-Efficiency Green Technology for Propylene Oxide Production at SINOPEC

Recently the 100 kt/a commercial demonstration HPPO unit for manufacture of propylene oxide (PO) via oxidizing propylene with hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizing agent by means of the titanium-silicalite (TS-1) catalysis developed by the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP) has been successfully put on stream at the first attempt at the SINOPEC Changling Petrochemical Branch Company, while delivering the polymerization grade propylene oxide product with a purity of 99.96% to symbolize that this unit has reached the internationally advanced level as evidenced by its technical indicators.

The HPPO technology aims at directly oxidizing propylene into PO in the presence of TS-1 zeolite by using hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizing agent under mild reaction conditions, with water serving as the major byproduct. In comparison with the traditional chlorohydrin process and the co-oxidation route, the HPPO process is more advantageous because of its green nature and highefficiency production.

The research team on the basis of bench scale and pilot tests has been engaging in the R&D and production of zeolite and catalyst, the preparation of PDP, the design of reactor and the separation-purification system, the fabrication, installation and debugging of equipment, the catalyst loading, the charging and precommissioning of facilities, and the process optimization and other tasks. The catalyst developed by RIPP features a high strength and a high content of active components. Currently, this unit runs smoothly and is striding forward towards such goals as full load, long cycle and high-level stable operation.