Petrochemical

Petrochemical

For petrochemicals, the main use of gas chromatography is controlling the production of saturated hydrocarbons, olefins and light diolefins. Careful screening of the incoming feedstock, which is cracked in pyrolysis, is required for process troubleshooting as incoming raw materials are highly variable. Chemicals that enter the process can poison catalysts, or may not be condensable and create a negative effect on the heat exchange or distillation processes, specifically sulfur compounds which can corrode equipment, poison catalysts during production and affect polymer yield. Routine measurements of ethane, ethylene, propane and propylene allows for proper control of the cracking operation to optimize process efficiency.

Known advantages of VUV Spectroscopy

• Unambiguous matching of key analytes including light hydrocarbons
• Ability to leverage class similarities for simplified analyses such as PIONA
• Easy optical resolution of chromatographic challenges like isomers, aldehydes, catalyst killers, and water
• Methods can be automated for multiple analyte targeting such as stream composition, process conversion, and multiple impurity scenarios
• Enables chromatographic compression for higher analysis productivity
• Easy to understand quantitative analysis by Beer-Lambert Law, with single order molar absorptivity