Titanium heat exchangers, condensers and related auxiliary equipment have been successfully used in petrochemical enterprises for more than 20 years. The most commonly used industrial pure titanium in titanium materials (TA2 is the most widely used), Ti-6Al-4V (when a certain strength is required) and ti-0.8ni-0.3mo (in cracks or in non oxidizing media).
Titanium equipment is ideal for crude oil refining with high sulfur and salt content. Titanium equipment has been successfully selected for many processes abroad, such as atmospheric distillation units, sewage treatment equipment, condensers of desulfurization separation towers and radiators of strippers. China has also used cast titanium seawater pump, titanium condenser in catalytic cracking and fractionation, cryogenic separation titanium condenser and porous titanium plate in this system, which have been in normal operation for more than ten years.
Chlorinated hydrocarbon is one of the largest varieties in petrochemical industry. Due to the chlorination reaction, stainless steel equipment has been incompetent. Abroad, titanium has been used to manufacture dichloromethane rectification tower, trichloroethane heat exchanger, condensing tower and fractionating tower, trichloroethylene condensing tower, perchloroethylene heat exchanger and polychloride coil heater. In the production of vinyl chloride in China, ti-0.2pd lining has been used for the tower plate support frame, connecting pipe and flange sealing surface of cooling tower, waste water stripper and waste water storage tank, which has been used for nearly ten years without corrosion. Titanium pipes, joints and gas distributors have been made of titanium for many years.
Phenol is an important raw material for petrochemical industry. It is a new process to obtain phenol and acetone from cumene and cumene peroxide with propylene and benzene in refined gas as raw materials. Titanium equipment was used abroad more than ten years ago, and this process is still under development in China. The old process uses benzene sulfonated alkali solution to produce phenol. China has adopted titanium neutralization reactor, titanium coil cooler and agitator shaft sleeve of ionic titanium nitride, and the effect is very good.
In the device of ethylene oxidation to acetaldehyde, acetaldehyde oxidation to acetic acid and propylene oxidation to acetone, in addition to certain corrosivity of raw materials and products, the main corrosive medium is catalyst, in which stainless steel corrodes rapidly, and only titanium has good corrosion resistance.
Foreign titanium lined reactors are up to 9.6m in height and 3M in diameter, as well as 11 titanium equipment such as heat exchangers, catalyst regeneration towers, acetaldehyde solution coolers, etc. Since the 1980s, Shanghai and Jilin have introduced foreign complete sets of equipment for the oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde, many of which are made of titanium, which has obvious advantages over stainless steel, and the use effect is very satisfactory.
