Petrochemicals

In the petrochemical industry the installation of tubular heat exchangers has been predominant for many decades. However, for some years now, sealed and fully-welded plate heat exchangers are finding more and more of a share in this market segment. These heat exchangers are exceptionally suitable for heat recovery tasks or the condensation of solvents. Plate heat exchangers with high pressures, temperatures, special materials and, in particular, special sealing qualities, are finding applications in petrochemical production processes. Intensive cooperation with leading companies worldwide has already resulted in the employment of SCHMIDT plate heat exchangers in the most varied offshore and onshore plants in the petrochemical sector.

Typical tasks for SIGMA plate heat exchanger in the petrochemical industries are:

  • Condensation of solvents and multiple-material mixtures
  • Cooling / Heating of reactors and production containers
  • Cooling and heating of intermediate products
  • Cooling of hydrocarbons
  • Cooling of water circuits
  • Benzene / Benzene heat recovery
  • Heat recovery within petrochemical processes

Application example: Unconverted Oil

For the reheating of 45 t/h of so-called “Unconverted Oil” by means of 2,380 kg/h saturated steam at 4.5 bar, our fully-welded SIGMAWIG plate heat exchangers were installed in a gas scrubbing system of the refinery. For reasons of availability, two units in total were installed as redundant backup.
Application example: Solvents
For the cooling of 76 t/h raw toluene, two plate heat exchangers are installed with an exchange surface of 102 m² each. Due to the pure solvents, special SIGMACOAT PTFE-jacketed seals are used. In a downstream process system, occurring vapor condensate is cooled with two more SIGMA units.

Application example: Quench water

An internationally active plant engineering group has installed a complete ethylene oxide system in a petrochemical plant. In this system, two SIGMA equipment units, with plates in material 1.4547 and seals in Viton G quality, are used for the cooling of the so-called “quench water”. Furthermore, a fully welded SIGMAWIG plate heat exchanger is also operated for the heating of distilled water by means of saturated steam at 170°C.