Articles on Chemical

Quench settler interface level at petrochemical plants must be properly controlled in order to increase productivity. Learn how better instrumentation can improve interface measurement in ethylene plants.

Ammonia vaporization is crucial to provide usable ammonia to many industries. Learn how level measurement solutions can help manage ammonia vaporization skids.

Level measurement for seal pots protects the safety and reliability of expensive equipment. Read more about solutions for seal pot level measurement and how Magnetrol® shared those solutions at a recent event.

Tank blanketing, or tank padding, is the process of injecting a gas into the empty space in a storage container. Nitrogen—the most widely used commercial gas—is the ideal tank blanketing gas when injected into the vapor space of a storage tank. It prevents ignition of flammable liquids, inhibits vapor loss, and protects chemicals from oxygen and moisture degradation. Nitrogen is also used as a purging agent and in cryogenic applications. 

Gases are frequently converted to a liquid in order to facilitate convenient storage. Many gases liquefy by cooling at normal atmospheric pressure, while others require pressurization as well. Industrial gases commonly stored in this fashion include liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, liquefied chlorine, liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. Liquefied gas plays a role in the ethylene industry as well. Feedstock to an ethylene plant’s fractionation towers contains a liquid cryogenic hydrocarbon mixture as a result of going through compression and refrigeration trains after the quench tower.

The ethylene production process begins with unprocessed material, or feedstock. Feedstock enters the plant and goes through the ethylene furnaces, in a process known as pyrolysis. Once it is cracked into a variety of hydrocarbons and hydrogen, it immediately begins to recombine into larger molecules. To prevent these reactions and stop the recombination, the cracked vapor goes through a quench tower to cool using oil or water. The largest hydrocarbons are carried with the water into the quench settler or the quench water separation drum (QWSD). As feedstock is increased, more cooling fluids are required.