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Methanol to Propylene Process Guide

S-MTP methanol to propylene technology was developed by SINOPEC to selectively produce propylene from methanol using two reaction steps. The process involves converting methanol to DME in a pre-reactor and then converting the effluents to propylene, gasoline, and other byproducts in multi-bed fixed bed MTP reactors. SINOPEC's SMAP-100 catalyst shows high stability and propylene selectivity in the MTP reaction. An industrial demonstration plant was successfully started in 2013 with a capacity of 625 kg/hour.

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129 views2 pages

Methanol to Propylene Process Guide

S-MTP methanol to propylene technology was developed by SINOPEC to selectively produce propylene from methanol using two reaction steps. The process involves converting methanol to DME in a pre-reactor and then converting the effluents to propylene, gasoline, and other byproducts in multi-bed fixed bed MTP reactors. SINOPEC's SMAP-100 catalyst shows high stability and propylene selectivity in the MTP reaction. An industrial demonstration plant was successfully started in 2013 with a capacity of 625 kg/hour.

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David pollito
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S-MTP Methanol to Propylene Technology

Process Description

S-MTP methanol to propylene technology was developed by SINOPEC for selective production of
propylene from coal chemical product-methanol. This technology provides an effective way to
bridge the coal chemical industry and the petrochemical industry. S-MTP process includes two
reactions: (1) Dimethyl Ether (DME) pre-reaction: methanol is partly converted to mixtures of
methanol, DME and water; (2) MTP reaction: the effluents from DME reactor are converted to the
target product propylene and by-products gasoline, liquefied gas and fuel gas. A special alumina
based catalyst and modified ZSM-5 zeolite catalyst are applied in DME pre-reaction and MTP
reaction respectively. The typical process flow diagram is shown in Fig 1.

Fig 1. Typical process flow diagram of S-MTP process

Methanol is preheated, vaporized, overheated and then fed into the pre-reactor to produce DME,
methanol and water mixtures. Most of the effluents from pre-reactor are then fed to the top of the
multi-bed fixed bed reactor. To control the temperature of the MTP reactor, a part of the effluent is
fed into the beds of the MTP reactor. The products flow into the oil-water separator after heat
recovery. The water phase is transferred to the water stripper to remove the methanol, DME, etc.
The oil stream stream is compressed and further separated in the separation unit. C1-C2 stream
from the top of de-ethanizer and C4-C6 stream from the top of de-hexanizer are sent back to the
MTP reactor to increase the yield of propylene. To avoid accumulation of inert products, a small
amount of fuel gas and C4-C6 need a periodic purge. Generally, three MTP reactors are
recommended, two on-stream and one standby. The main process conditions are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Main process conditions of S-MTP process

DME Reactor MTP Reactor


Temperature, ℃ 250-400 400-500
Pressure, Mpa (G) 1.0-2.0 0-0.3
-1
WHSV, h 1.0-4.0 0.5-2.0

Features of Technology

 SMAP-100 catalyst developed by SINOPEC shows better stability and higher propylene
selectivity in MTP reaction.
 Layer fixed bed reactor was developed for S-MTP process. Combining the layer feed way
and quench technology, the temperature of MTP reactor can be controlled well.
 Fixed bed reactors are used, which is easy to be scaled up and can lower investment cost.

Catalyst

 Physical properties
SMAP-100 is used for S-MTP process and the chemical-physical properties of the
catalyst is shown inTable 2.

Table 2. Chemical-physical properties of SMAP-100


Catalyst SMAP-100
Appearance White sphere
Main phase alumina, silica
Size, mm Ф4~6
3
Bulk density, kg/m 560±40
Crush strength, N ≥ 40

 The reaction performance of SMAP-100 are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. The reaction performance of SMAP-100


Item performance
Methanol Conversion, wt% ≥99
Propylene Selectivity, wt% ≥64
Regeneration period, day ≥50
Service life, month ≥18

Commercial Application

In 2013, an S-MTP industrial demonstration plant with capacity of 625 kg methanol/hour was started
up successfully in Yangzi Petrochemical Company.

Investment Estimation

At Chinese price level of 2015, the investment of building an S-MTP plant with capacity of 1,800,
000 tons/year is about RMB 2.0 billion.

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