Large-Scale Production of C9 Aromatic Hydrocarbon Resin from the Cracked-Petroleum-Derived C9 Fraction: Chemistry, Scalability, and Techno-economic Analysis

Conversion of olefin-rich side streams of petroleum distillate cracking operations, pyrolysis gasoline (pygas), to hydrocarbon resins (HRs) represents a promising technology to upgrade the pygas byproduct and facilitate pygas valorization. Several methods have been reported for the synthesis of C9 HRs on a laboratory scale, but none has been implemented on a commercial scale. Owing to the lack of information on C9-HR production know-how, the current publicly available technical and financial performance analyses regarding industrial-scale C9 HR manufacturing are insufficient to justify its feasibility. Herein, the large-scale synthesis of C9 HR from the steam-cracked petroleum-derived C9 fraction by two proposed catalytic polymerization processes has been developed. Two C9-HR manufacturing processes are divided into two processing areas, which include synthesis and purification/product recovery sections. The P-HO process is based on the catalytic co-oligomerization of the C9 fraction as the feed, which ends after the alkali decomposition of the catalyst followed by product recovery by vacuum distillation. The P-HE process uses the same reactor, which ends after catalyst filtration followed by product recovery using vacuum distillation. The laboratory-scale experiments were performed to collect inputs for process simulation. A set of targeted experiments including the increase of the scale from the laboratory (VL = 0.0005 m3) to pilot plant (VP = 0.1 m3) were performed and the impact of scaling up the processes from the lab and bench to the pilot scale at equal process conditions was investigated. The differences in the HR production rate between the two scale types for the P-HO scenario are slightly greater than for the P-HE scenario. On the basis of data derived from the experimental work, a model of a large-scale installation for the production of C9 HR with the production rate of 160 metric ton (MT)/year was developed using the Aspen Hyprotech System (HYSYS) v8.8 simulation program. The obtained data from the relevant literature and vendor were used for process equipment design and pricing. Economic feasibility showed that the P-HO scenario has more efficiency and less risk-taking than the P-HE scheme (because of valuable net present value (NPV) $10 977 billion, larger internal rate of return (IRR) 44.01% at $1900/T HR selling price, and less fluctuation against sensitivity analysis parameters).