Arabian Industrial Fibers Co.

REACTOR PRE-HEATERS MICRO FLUSHING

by

Mohammed Omar A. Babrouk

PTA & Polyester Process Engineering Suptd.
 CONTENT

General Foreword
Ibn Rushd Process
PTA Process Description & Diagram
The Issue
Business Impact
The Idea
The Proposal
The Procedure
Conclusion
Economic Impact
 IBN RUSHD

Genuine Name for a Glorified Muslim

Scholar.
IBN RUSHD was established on 20-02-1993.

PTA project was established in 1999.

The process is licensed by INCA INT. TECHNOLOGY
of ITALY .
The design capacities of the PTA plant was 350,000 MT
and currently we achieved to increase up to 420,000
MT.
 IBN RUSHD PROCESS DIAGRAM
ARAMCO
YANPET

Propane / Butane
MEG / DEG

B.G.C.
Pure 63,000 MTA
Aromatic
Polyester SF
235,000 MTA Terephthalic 125,000 MTA 49,000 MTA
Plant
Plant POY
Acid Plant 31,500 MTA
725,000 MTA
154,000 MTA
350,000 MTA T.G.C.
10,500 MTA

PTA ( 225,000 MTA)

Paraxylene (140,000 MTA)

S how Des ktop.s cf Benzene ( 350,000 MTA)

 PTA PLANT PROCESS DESCRIPTION

PTA plant consists of two main sections: Crude

Terephthalic Acid (CTA) Section and Purified Terephthalic
Acid (PTA) Section.

CTA is produced by the oxidation of paraxylene in the

presence of acetic acid as solvent & catalyst and then it is
purified by hydrogenation reaction to produce PTA.
 PTA PLANT PROCESS DIAGRAM
Raw Materials and
Air Compressor
Catalyst

Feed Oxidation Reaction &

Filtration & Drying
Preparation Crystallization

Recovery units CTA Storage

TO PTA SECTION

Slurry Feed Preparation & Hydrogenation Reaction

Centrifuging & Drying
Preheating & Crystallization

PTA Quality Check

PTA Final silos
silos
 THE ISSUE

The PTA section has a basic design deficiency with the

Pre-Heater tubes chocking. This frequent chocking leads
to frequent flushing to PTA section,( once every month for
24 hrs minimum and two shutdown/year (mechanical
cleaning) for total 8 days minimum.
 BUSINESS IMPACT

This frequent Pre-Heater tubes chocking has a severe

impact on the productivity, plant availability, spare parts,
manpower and profitability.

A lot of efforts have been put in by the licenser and IR to

over come this problem.

Several modifications and improvement being

implemented. However, the problem is not resolved
completely.
 THE IDEA

Since the Pre-heater de-chocking required flush every

month & each flush causing minimum of 24 hrs production
loss. The idea came from this;

Can we flush the pre-heaters without affecting the

process continuity?

Can we eliminate the 24 hrs flush?.

 THE PROPOSAL

With these questions in mind, the proposal came to flush

the pre-heaters online in daily basis without affecting the
process and considering the following:

Not disturb the reactor pressure to maintain same

product quality.

Maximize the flushing flow to have proper cleaning.

To keep the flushing time less than the resident time

of the reactor.
 THE PROCEDURE
In order to implement the proposed idea following procedure was followed:
Start other DM water pump G1
Line up dilution water header. Open DM water V 1 P-

Slowly isolate G2 discharge valve V2

Keep run the system for 5 to 10 min
Close V1 & open V2 P- P-32 P-35

System Normalized

K.B G1 V1

V-1

E-4
E-25 E-26 E-29 E-28 E-31 E-30
P-11

V-2

V-2 E-1

E-1
V2 P-26 P-27 P-41 P-30 P-42 P-37 P-38 E-11

G2
P-

V-3
 CONCLUSION

Several trials were done with close monitoring to the

plant conditions and product quality.

It was found that this new procedures have great affect

on maintaining the pre-heaters Delta P (chocking
indication) and no more 24 hrs flushing is required.

By applying this practice, IR eliminates one of the most

difficult design deficiencies. Also enable us to increase
the plant load (capacity utilization) and maximize plant
on stream factor.
 ECONOMIC IMPACT

Plant hourly Production: 43.80 MT/hrs

Plant design capacity: 350,000 MT/year on 333
days
Before / After implementing the new flushing procedures, the
effect on the productivity as follow:
Before After
Available operating hrs 7752 7992
Planned s/d hrs 528 528
unplanned s/d hrs 240 240
S/D hrs due to pre-heaters cleaning 240 0
PTA production (MT/year) 339489 350000
PLANT PRODUCTIVITY 97.00% 100.00%

Comparing both cases by implementing this idea

the PLANT PRODUCTIVITY increases by 3.00%