CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING
NEWS I ^1 • • •
W V
^ ^
OCTOBER 5, 1964
U.S. Steel to Increase Chemicals Capacity Will make ammonia at Clairton Works; cryogenic unit will recover hydrogen, light oils from coke oven gas U.S. Steel last week revealed plans for a major increase in its chemicals capacity. The nation's largest steel producer confirmed that it would build an anhydrous ammonia plant at its Clairton (Pa.) Works with a capacity of 400,000 tons per year. The unit is expected to be in production late in 1966. The heart of the plant will be a cryogenic process that recovers hydrogen from coke oven gas. An air separation plant will supply the nitrogen. The hydrogen recovery process was developed by Gesellschaft fur Linde's Eismaschinen, A.G., of West Germany, which is represented in the U.S. by Lotepro Corp., New York City. Linde also did the mechanical engineering on the project. U.S. Steel already has a substantial foothold in chemicals. It turns out a range of coal chemicals, including 60 million gallons per year of benzene, 12 million gallons of toluene, and 3 million gallons of xylenes from its coking operations, along with 150 million pounds of naphthalene. A small ammonia synthesis unit at Provo, Utah, was built for the company's ColumbiaGeneva steel division in 1955. It, too, was designed by German Linde. The coke plant at the Clairton Works has a capacity of more than 21,000 tons of coke per day. About 75% of the coal charged comes out as coke; about 10% is volatilized to coke oven gas. The German Linde unit will process 186,000 standard cubic feet per minute of these coke oven gases. The technique involves condensing the components of coke oven gas in interchangeable regenerators—vessels packed with metal spheres, wire spirals, or even fine pebbles—at low temperatures. A primary regenerator plant will separate a mixture of ethylene and heavier volatile constituents from the coke oven gas. Hydrogen sulfide,
hydrogen cyanide, and some benzene will be separated and recovered from this stream of heavier constituents in a separate unit, leaving a fraction rich in ethylene. Here again, regenerator techniques and scrubbing steps will be used to separate by-products. Crude hydrogen—about 90% p u r e will be produced from part of the coke oven gas leaving the primary regenerator. This, hydrogen is further purified in a liquid nitrogen scrubber. The nitrogen for synthesis and for the scrubber will be supplied by a new air separation plant, which produces highpurity oxygen as a by-product. Altogether, the new units are designed to produce about 1100 tons per day of
ammonia synthesis gas, according to German Linde. A high-purity, desulfurized stream of coke oven gas will also be produced by the primary regenerator, U.S. Steel says. It will be used to increase recovery of light oils, the source of benzene, toluene, and xylenes. The ammonia plant is the only project definitely scheduled so far by the corporation. But the cryogenic approach has strong chemical potential should USS decide to pursue it. Fountainhead. Coke oven gases are a potential fountainhead of raw materials. A typical analysis, combined with the full coking capacity of the Clairton ovens, shows an annual
OVENS. Coke ovens at Clairton will be source of hydrogen (to be recovered in cryogenic unit) for making ammonia. Nitrogen will come from air separation unit OCT.
5, 1 9 6 4
C&EN
25
potential of 650 million pounds of hydrogen, 330 million pounds of carbon monoxide, 1 billion pounds of methane, 50 million pounds of hydrogen sulfide, 13 million pounds of hydrogen cyanide, 150 million pounds of ethylene, and 25 million pounds of propylene. A logical extension of U.S. Steel's chemical operations, should the new cryogenic venture pay off, would be to purify the ethylene to be separated from its coke oven gas. This could be the basis for such chemicals as polyethylene, polypropylene, ethylene glycol, and adhesives at Clairton. Making polyethylene and polypropylene, however, would hinge on the corporation's ability to solve the problem of purity that has blocked the acceptance of coal chemicals in some markets. USS, incidentally, has stressed the purity of its coal chemicals in recent advertising. The acquisition of Pittsburgh Chemical's industrial chemicals and protective coatings divisions in July gave U.S. Steel the nucleus of an expanded chemicals marketing operation. It also added capacity for some 60 million pounds per year of phthalic anhydride, 20 million pounds of maleic anhydride, 10 million pounds of fumaric acid, and 30 to 40 million pounds of primary plasticizers, such as dioctyl phthalate. U.S. Steel also has an interest (with Amoco Chemicals) in Oxo Chemicals, which produces about 40 million pounds per year of iso-octyl and iso-decyl alcohols at Haverhill, Ohio. Acquisition of the Pittsburgh Chemical divisions also gave U.S. Steel a captive supply of sulfuric acid. Pitt Chem's phthalic anhydride and protective coatings will provide outlets for naphthalene and coal tars made by the steel company. The two divisions had been losing $800,000 per year before U.S. Steel bought them.
Kellogg Gets Contract for ICI Ammonia Plant Kellogg International Corp. has received the contract to build Imperial Chemical Industries' 300,000 longton-a-year ammonia plant at Billingham, County Durham, England (C&EN, June 1, page 19). Slated for production early in 1966, the plant will be based on naphtha feedstock using ICI's pressure steam reforming process. 26
C&EN
OCT. 5, 1964
Kellogg is already working on the modernization of two of ICI's existing ammonia plants at Billingham. Both of these units will also have a capacity of 300,000 long tons a year. These two units plus the new plant will increase ICI's total ammonia capacity to 1.5 million long tons a year in 1966, making it the largest single producer of ammonia in the world. The new ammonia plant is part of ICI's over-all $84 million program for increasing fertilizer production in the U.K. Part of the new ammonia unit's output will be used in the company's 350,000 long-ton-a-year urea plant planned to go up alongside it at Billingham. The program also includes units for making 30,000 long tons a year of prilled ammonium nitrate and 190,000 long tons a year of nitric acid at Severnside, near Bristol. New urea production will be primarily for Commonwealth and other overseas markets. All units should be completed in 1966 or earlier.
C&EN to Open News Bureau in Japan in January CHEMICAL
AND
ENGINEERING
NEWS
will open a news bureau in Japan on Jan. 1, 1965. It will be the first American chemical magazine to have a fulltime editor in the Far East. The new bureau, to be located in Tokyo, will be manned by Patrick P. McCurdy. Mr. McCurdy is now head of C&EN's news bureau in Frankfurt, West Germany. H. Clifford Neely, who arrived in Frankfurt last week from his former job as assistant editor in C&EN's Pittsburgh bureau, will replace Mr. McCurdy as assistant editor in Frankfurt. C&EN thus continues its pioneering role in reporting at first hand the news of international developments, both industrial and scientific. It, along with two other Applied Publications of the American Chemical Society (Industrial and Engineering Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry), led the way among chemical publications with the first full-time international editor in Europe (London in 1950). C&EN added a second man to the European staff in 1959, then opened a second office there in 1961 (in Frankfurt, West Germany). And Now Japan. The new Tokyo office is the next logical step in C&EN's goal of keeping pace with international progress. Western Eu-
rope emerged first in the postwar years, and now Japan is the word on many lips. Rising from almost total destruction a short 18 years ago, Japan ranks among the top 10 chemical powers, both industrially and scientifically. Its chemical leaders have been most aggressive on the international scene, with study teams and commercial and scientific missions in evidence wherever one travels in chemical circles in the Free World. Japan is now the U.S.'s second largest chemical customer ($157.3 million worth of purchases last year and second to Canada's $301 million). As Virginia Kinnard wrote in her article in C&EN's annual Facts and Figures issue early last month (C&EN, Sept. 7, page 87), "As Japanese industry grows, it will continue to buy more intermediates and semifinished products. Demand for chemicals from the other industries is increasing sharply, particularly from consumer products manufacturers." Japanese science and technology have also made important strides since the war. About 7% of the abstracts in Chemical Abstracts are now based on articles in Japanese periodicals, and Japanese scientists also contribute to journals of other countries. Technology has been exchanged at a high rate between U.S. and Japanese companies, and many U.S. firms have set up joint ventures or established subsidiaries in Japan. C&EN's expansion into Japan is the latest in a series of bureau expansions spanning two decades. The first group of bureaus consisted of New York (1944), Chicago (1945), Houston (1946), and San Francisco (1946). London followed in 1950 and Frankfurt in 1961. Within the past three years C&EN has opened domestic news bureaus in Philadelphia (1961), Los Angeles (1961), Cleveland (1962), and Pittsburgh (1962). When the new Tokyo office is operating, C&EN will have 22 technical reporters manning offices in 12 cities in the U.S. and overseas covering news of chemical science and industry. In addition, a staff of 18 technical editors works in the headquarters office in Washington, D.C. In Tokyo Mr. McCurdy will report on what the Japanese are doing in their own country that will affect American scientists and industrialists. He will also cover news about Japan's actions in the Far East and the rest of the Free World.
