Refineries have to continuously explore new opportunities in order to sustain and grow using energy integration of upstream and downstream operations and finding out ways to divert the available feedstock into more marketable and in demand products. There is the opportunity to use the feedstocks to make raw materials which can produce lower cost products like ethylene which is the most widely used monomer in the petrochemical industry. Typically, PCN is composed of the lighter fraction of straight run naphtha. The major cause of concern is the stringent compliance of CS2 content as it tends to poison the catalyst irreversibly. After analyzing the ways to remove CS2 from PCN by hydrotreating, adsorption and conventional distillation, the use of DWCs seems to be the most feasible and cost-effective option.
Reprinted from PTQ Q3 2022.
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