Brief Process Description and Production Flowchart

The Butene-1 unit at Jam Petrochemical Company, licensed by AXENS and engineered by Nargan, has a production capacity of 100,000 tons per year, making it the largest butene-1 production unit in the country. In addition to supplying the downstream units of the complex, it is capable of meeting the needs of other polyolefin companies nationwide. Moreover, a significant portion of its production is allocated for export to consumer countries.

Butene-1 is produced through the dimerization of two ethylene molecules in the liquid phase. This exothermic reaction takes place in two parallel sets of reactors in operation, in the presence of LC catalyst and TEA co-catalyst. The heat generated by the reaction is removed via circulating loops using chilled water supplied by a propylene refrigeration system.

The flow containing butene-1 and C6+ components is withdrawn from the bottom of the reactor and, after amine injection (reaction stopper), is sent to the evaporator section. After separating lighter compounds in the flash drum and removing catalysts and consumed amine in the Thin Film Evaporator (TFE), the resulting vapor phase stream containing butene-1, C6+, and unreacted ethylene is sent to the distillation section. This section consists of two columns: the overhead from the first column is unreacted ethylene, which is recycled back to the reactors; the bottom product of the first column is sent to the second column, where butene-1 is separated as the overhead product and C6+ as the bottom product.