The 3rd Annual Global Petrochemical Technology Conference kicks off on October 1st in Doha

In a pre event interview he said "As part of Corporate Social Responsibility, SABIC is committed to decrease its carbon footprint by reducing the net emission of greenhouse gases from its operating plants by converting CO2 waste streams into useful feedstock.

In general, major sources of CO2 include fuel combustion and by-products from plants which produce, for example, fertilizers, ethylene oxide and steel. This CO2 can be considered as alternative feedstock for producing many valuable products in the chemical industry. However, certain sources of CO2 such as CO2 from ethylene oxide plants cannot be used directly for industrial use and need to be purified. In order to utilize the CO2 by-product of its ethylene oxide plants, SABIC has developed a special process in which the saturated, unsaturated and chlorinated hydrocarbons in the CO2 by product stream are reduced. The purified CO2 can subsequently be used to produce various chemicals including methanol, olefins, oxo-alcohols or urea.

In this developed process, carbon dioxide from the ethylene oxide plants is available at low pressure and contains equal amount of water vapour as it is saturated at 90 ºC. This stream is compressed, heated and passed over noble metal oxidation catalyst for catalytic conversion of MEG, ethylene and chlorinated hydrocarbons in presence of excess oxygen (chlorinated hydrocarbons are converted to HCl). This gas is cooled to ambient temperature and the majority of purified water is condensed and can be used as BFW (Boiler Feed Water) after minor treatments. This process was tested and validated on-line with a commercial Ethylene Oxide plant for eight months continuously. Results have proven that this process will not only purify CO2 to the required catalyst manufacturers limits but also has the additional advantage of saving large amounts of water presently escaping along with the vented gas.

The purified CO2 is ready at this stage to be used as feedstock for different applications. For example, CO2 can be mixed with H2 which is obtained from a H2 rich stream using PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption).

The mixed gas then is fed to the methanol converter at the required temperature and pressure for the production of crude methanol. Alternatively, the H2 purification step can be skipped and the purified CO2 is directly mixed with H2 rich stream and sent to a modified methanol synthesis reactor. It is expected that through this scheme chemicals such as methanol or oxo-alcohols can be produced approximately 20-30% cheaper compared to conventional manufacturing routes."

Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Jodai has over 18 years of experience in managing short and long term project development.

He has been granted several patents in process development and environmental fields. He has also been appointed by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) for developing strategy for the petrochemical industry in Saudi Arabia. Dr. Aljodai's current involvements include formulation of mid and long term strategy, development of technology roadmaps and portfolio management of various research programs.

The conference will so focus on one of the upcoming topics that will be covered at this summit is an overview of chemical industry in China.

The conference will be succeeded by a one day workshop on shale gas exploration and extraction and implementing new generation of catalysts.