Para-xylene Production Through Methylation of Toluene
Team Members Heading link
- Mahamat Abdraman
- James Fell
- Rongwei Lin
- William Rawson
Advisors: Betul Bilgin, PhD, Adam Brostow, UOP with Honeywell
Project Description Heading link
Paraxylene is a commonly produced product in the petrochemical industry. This valuable product is used in the making of polyester fibers, films, and resins to satisfy the growing demand from emerging economies. The purpose of this project is to provide an innovative and novel design of a plant that will produce 99.5% pure paraxylene while maintaining the objectives of energy and cost efficiency. During the separation of paraxylene from a reformed naphtha feedstock, a large amount of by-products are produced, namely toluene. Toluene has a relatively cheap market price and low demand. Implementing the methylation of toluene process to the plant will be able to convert toluene into paraxylene with a conversion of greater than 90%. The design will implement an existing technological model of toluene methylation while also incorporating new energy optimization ideas that can still produce para-xylene of optimal purity. The plant is expected to have a production capacity of 4.5 MMPTA.
The economic metrics justify the novel paraxylene production through toluene methylation compared to most conventional based and energy extensive processes. The process exhibits a high gross profit of $1,092 MM/year and a cash cost of production of $8,806 MM/year from a total revenue of $3,158 MM/year. High production capacity and relatively low energy consumption exhibited by the process makes toluene methylation more appealing to investors in developing countries with high demand. The highly increasing consumption of paraxylene-derived materials by emerging economies, such as China and India, indicate that global demand might grow even higher than the current rate of 7% per year. Therefore, the optimum production of paraxylene through toluene methylation is lucrative and will remain as such for the next few decades as more underdeveloped countries move towards economic prosperity.
See supporting documentation in the team’s Box drive.