Formaldehyde Production Technology

Formaldehyde HCHO is a basic chemical raw material widely used in resin, plastic, leather, paper and fiber production. Thus, it plays a very important role in humans production and life. Due to a group of well-known senior engineers continuous exploration and innovation, Jiangsu Hengmao Machinery Manufacture Co., Ltd. has developed a series of formaldehyde processes based on the traditional production process, such as off- gas circulation process, low conversion methanol- free process, flue gas circulation process and the newest formaldehyde process (Hengmao Process). These processes have created a new route for formaldehyde production, and thus Hengmao has taken a leading position in Chinese formaldehyde industry.

Formaldehyde Production Process

1. Off gas circulation process The traditional formaldehyde production process involves methanol evaporation, mixing gas heating, filtration, fire retardant, methanol oxidation to give

formaldehyde(gas), and formaldehyde(gas) absorption to obtain 37% product. Nowadays more and more formaldehyde producing enterprises wish to increase formaldehyde concentration with the development of formaldehyde down stream products, and the requirement of energy saving and emission reduction. Therefore, tail gas circulation process was developed. In this process, tail gas instead of steam vapor is used to reduce the steam feed and water content, thus ensuring the relatively high concentration formaldehyde(around 45%). Furthermore, the amount of byproduct steam is also improved.

Flow Diagram of Off-Gas Circulation Process

2.

Incomplete Conversion Process In the traditional methanol oxidation process, CO 2 and CO are easy to be yielded

as byproducts because of the high temperature (about 650). These byproducts, coupled with 1% methanol residue of the final formaldehyde product, increase methanol consumption. Incomplete conversion process is to lower reaction temperature, decrease side reactions occurrence, and recover the non-reacted methanol by distillation. So methanol consumption can be decreased, and meanwhile methanol concentration can be increased.

Flow Diagram of Incomplete Conversion Process 3. Flue Gas Circulation Process Besides CO 2 COCH4 CH3 OH and CH2 O, the tail gas contains 18-20% hydrogen. Hydrogen will cause side reactions such as consuming O 2 to form H2 O and consuming methanol to form CH4 in the oxidation process. Also the existing of hydrogen will inhibit de-hydrogen reaction, and increase methanol consumption. Given these reasons, we developed Flue Gas Circulation Process. Since the main compositions of flue gas (including N2 , CO2 and other inert gases ) are non-reactive and can inhibit the formation of CO 2, CO, CH4 and HCOOH, this process enables less byproducts(i.e., CO 2 2.2-2.8% CO 0.1-0.3% CH4 0.1-0.2%) and less methanol consumption (i.e., 8-10kg/t methanol can be saved). Meanwhile,

the 5-10% excess oxygen of flue gas can result in an increase of formaldehyde output by 10-20% and steam(byproduct) output by 10%. Also power consumption can be decreased by 4-6KWh/t. The comparison of flue gas circulation process with other processes
Low Traditional No. Name Unit Process Tail Gas Circulation Process Conversion, M ethanol Free Process Formaldehy % de M ethanol Formic Acid M ethanol Consumption Process Spec. Circulation t/t Water Power Oxygen/M et mol hanol Ratio Oxidation Tem. Convert low Ratio Safety 4 Inlet Steam Heat Relatively 5 Comprehensive Utilization Poor Good Good Relatively Good Good Kg/t Good 330-350 Good Good 400-550 Good 330-450 Good 500-650 Good 500-650 Relatively Lowest High High 640-660 640-660 600-630 620-640 610-640 0.38-0.41 0.38-0.45 0.35-0.38 0.38-0.43 0.38-0.41 Kwh/t 28 30 27-28 30 30 70 50 50 50 50 % % Kg/t 1-2 0.02 450 1 0.01 445 0.5 0.01 440 0.5 0.01 440 0.2 0.01 436 Quality 37 37-45 37-45 37-50 37-50 Flue Gas Circulation Process The Newest Process

Flow Diagram of Flue Gas Circulation As mentioned above, Flue Gas Circulation Process is superior to other processes and deserves to be promoted. Jiangsu Hengmao has a group of engineers and technicians, who are specialized in this process. We are qualified to undertake turnkey EPC projects including engineering design, fabrication, installation, commissioning and startup. 4. The Newest Formaldehyde Production Process (Hengmao Process) Both Tail Gas Circulation Process and Low Conversion, Methanol Free Process are developed based on the traditional process, i.e., methanol evaporationover heating filtrationoxidation1# absorption tower2# absorption tower 3# absorption towertail gas incineration. They require long flow, overmany equipments, high consumption, and large site area. In view of these facts, Hengmao Company has developed the newest formaldehyde production process with proprietary intellectual property right. Three sets of equipment

(EvaporationOxidationAbsorption) are designed to replace the traditional equipments, thus ensuring shorter process flow, less land coverage and low investment; furthermore, high concentration formaldehyde with low content of methanol can be gained. Hengmao Process and its Features: This process involves air scrubber to ensure the cleanness of raw material gas.

(Clean air helps to decrease system resistance, increase electrolytic silver efficiency, and therefore strengthen formaldehyde capacity.) The scrubbed clean air, coupled with methanol, air, steam and tail gas (flue gas), is sent by blower to the evaporator in fixed proportion, which is a combined and integrating equipment of evaporation, mixing, over-heating, and filtration. After being blended uniformly, the gas mixture is fed to the oxidation reactor. Oxygen in the air reacts with methanol to form formaldehyde in the oxidation reactor under silver catalyst; while the steam and tail gas (flue gas) is to take away the generated heat. A heat exchanging section is set in the oxidation reactor to: a. Increase vapor amount to recover more steam. b. Increase outlet temperature of oxidation reactor and thus produce high concentration formaldehyde with low methanol content. An absorption tower is divided into distillation section and absorption section to produce concentration and temperature gradients, which avoid formaldehyde polymerization, help to yield high concentration formaldehyde, and allow methanol recovery. The final tail gas is sent to the incinerator for burning. After incineration, the obtained flue gas is cooled down and returns to evaporator as heat transfer medium. This process enables high heat utilization efficiency:

Salt free water can be replenished into the combined evaporator to reduce
feeding steam consumption.

The heat of circulated formaldehyde in absorption tower can be used for

evaporating methanol so that steam can be saved.

Combined Evaporator can greatly shorten the distance between

evaporator and oxidation reactor; therefore, equipment arrangement will be tighter and heat loss will be reduced.

The emission gas from incinerator can be employed to preheat boiler water
or air; byproduct steam can be sent out for other uses.

Flow Diagram of the Newest Formaldehyde Process (Hengmao Process)

30000t/a Formaldehyde Plant

80000t/a Formaldehyde Plant 80000t/a Formaldehyde Project

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50000t/a Formaldehyde Plant

30000t/a Formaldehyde Plant

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