The removal of impurities from a process stream

Abstract

The high purity 1-octene produced by Sasol Alpha Olefins in Secunda and which is sold to DOW Chemical Company for co-monomer application, has performed poorly over the DOW Ziegler-Natta catalysts. The reason for the poor performance was catalyst poisoning caused by low-level impurities present in the 1-octene. Much work from Sasol and DOW has gone into identifying the components responsible for catalyst deactivation, as well as methods suitable for removing them without significant 1-octene losses. Super NMP (n-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone) extractive distillation piloting was performed previously on 1-octene in order to remove the low-level impurities that deactivate the DOW catalysts. VLE (vapour liquid equilibrium) test work performed previously indicated that all xylenol isomers are more promising as extractive distillation solvents than NMP.