DES PLAINES, US: Honeywell (HON) said that IRPC PLC will use a range of advanced process technologies from Honeywell UOP for a new aromatics complex in Thailand's Rayong Province.
As part of the project, Honeywell UOP will provide licensing, design, key equipment and state-of-the-art catalysts and adsorbents. When completed in 2022, the complex will produce 1.2 million metric tons per year of paraxylene used to make plastic resins, films and fibres. It also will increase its benzene production capacity from 114,000 to 495,000 tons per year. Benzene is a fuel additive and ingredient in plastics, lubricants, rubber, dyes and detergents.
The project will include a Honeywell UOP CCR Platforming unit, which converts naphtha into high-octane gasoline and aromatics, and an LD Parex unit, which recovers high-purity paraxylene from mixed xylenes and uses a new, more energy efficient light desorbent.
The complex also will include Honeywell UOP Sulfolane technology to extract aromatics from the feed; Isomar technology to convert xylene isomers into more valuable paraxylene; and Tatoray technology, which converts toluene andC9 aromatics into mixed xylenes and high-purity benzene, and that more than doubles the yield of paraxylene from the naphtha feedstock.
Honeywell UOP is the world's leading licensor of process technology for the production of aromatics. As of last year, UOP licensed more than 100 complexes and more than 700 individual process units for the production of aromatics, including more than 300 CCR Platforming process units and 159 Sulfolane units, 81 Isomar units, 59 Tatoray units, and 101 Parex units worldwide.
IRPC Public Company Limited is a publicly traded petroleum and petrochemical company, and a subsidiary of PTT Group. IRPC is based in Mueang Rayong District, Rayong Province, Thailand, and operates the first fully integrated petrochemical complex in Southeast Asia.
"This complex will enable IRPC to significantly convert its available intermediate feedstocks to higher value aromatics products such as paraxylene and benzene. This is the latest in a series of aromatics projects using advanced UOP technologies that have low capital and operating expense," said John Gugel, vice president and general manager, process technology and equipment, at Honeywell UOP.
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