Paraffin Separation Essay

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Introduction: Light Olefins such as ethylene and propylene are extremely important chemical intermediates, produced through cracking of various hydrocarbon feeds, which are used to produce a wide range of chemical products, such as various polymers, as well as a wide range of smaller chemicals. After cracking, olefin molecules need to be separated from their corresponding paraffin molecules. The olefins are also important for petrochemical industries due to their use as main building blocks for many for industrial and domestic applications. Olefin/paraffin separation is very difficult to achieve because the molecules are similar in size and volatility. The relative volatility of propylene and propane mixture is 1.1 and that of ethylene and ethane is 1.5. Traditional …show more content…

Compound Ethylene Ethane Molecular formula CAS No Molecular Weight(g mol) Melting point k Liquid density (kg m3) Physical methods for olefins paraffin separation: Physical separation methods refer to any means of olefin/paraffin separation that use the physical properties between the species in order to achieve separation. These properties include size, shape, boiling point, vapour pressure, volatility etc. Cryogenic distillation: Separation of olefin-paraffin mixtures resulting from cracking are often done in a series of distillation columns designed for this purpose. A common process diagram is shown in Figure 2-1. @ Master thesis). For each olefin-paraffin pair, two columns are required. The first separates that size of molecule from the rest of the mixture (e.g., separation of ethylene and ethane from the remaining feed) while the second separates the olefin-paraffin pair from each other (e.g., separation of ethylene from ethane).

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