First Commercial Application of YS-9010 Silver Catalyst at Yangzi Petrochemical Company

The technical development project “Commercial test for application of YS-9010 silver catalyst”, jointly undertaken by the SINOPEC Yangzi Petrochemical Company (YPC),the SINOPEC Beijing Research Institute of Chemical Industry (BRICI), and the SINOPEC Catalyst Company,Ltd., has been successfully implemented in commercial scale in the No. 2 EO/EG unit at YPC.

Till the beginning of September 2017, this catalyst has been operating in the #2 EO/EG unit for more than one month to display a better than expected quick increase in catalytic selectivity. Test results have shown that the reaction temperature of the catalyst is low, featuring good catalytic activity, less side reactions, and good quality of main products. This unit since its startup is delivering ethylene oxide (EO) and ethylene glycol (EG)with their top quality rate reaching 100%. The material consumption is low and the novel catalyst has reduced the material consumption by around 50 kg of ethylene/ton of equivalent EO in comparison with the material consumption norm achieved by the previous catalyst.The novel YS-9010 silver catalyst reaches by about 100 percentage points of selectivity higher than the previous YS-8810 silver catalyst.

During the commercial tests of the YS-9010 silver catalyst in the #2 EO/EG unit at YPC, the catalyst cycle length is expected to reach three years, with its maximum selectivity equating to 90% and its average selectivity being no less than 88%.