Location: Yueyang, Hunan province, China

Start-up time: 2011

Background:

Original sec-butyl acetate unit produced 15 Kt/a sec-butyl acetate product, but customer wanted capacity increased to 20 Kt/a just by replacing old internals without changing the whole columns or other related main equipments.

Solution:

The exiting columns with original internals could not meet the current requirement of capacity through hydraulic ratings. Based on optimized operating conditions, packing loadings and desired matched packing efficiency in every section for each column, ZEHUA chose most suitable packing type so as to completely reuse old column. Liquid collector, liquid distributor and bed limiter were integrated to have more space for packing in the limited height of columns.

Result:

This unit showed a good performance after it started up in 2011. The purity of sec-butyl acetate could be larger than 99% and capacity was increased by 33%. This reconstruction could meet required capacity expansion.