Kraton Polymers

“Kraton Polymers is the world's leading manufacturer of [styrenic block copolymers] SBCs [and] unique polyisoprene grades…” The Belpre, OH site has undergone numerous process expansions in its relatively short existence to keep up with the increased demand for high performance elastomers. With each expansion, the demand on various auxiliary systems has increased.

Kraton Polymers – Solvent Removal Column Debottleneck

The Solvent Removal column flashes off volatile organics prior to sending wash water to effluent. This column had undergone numerous design and process modifications since its original installation in 1980.

At the time of the project, the column was operating at 150% of the modified design feed rate. The project goal was to identify options for reducing the flow of organics passing through the bottoms and subsequently on to effluent, where costly purification efforts must be used to meet EPA outfall requirements.

As identified by previous engineering studies, available text book solutions are not applicable. This particular system must be designed for recovery from upstream equipment, which can contaminate the column with high viscosity material. This requirement forced all design recommendations to be very robust.

Recommendations submitted to the client focused on incrementally increasing operating costs, while significantly improving column performance. Theoretical separation limits under various operating scenarios were provided to reinforce the recommendations. Two recommendations were: Revise process control strategy on the steam sparge More aggressive operating conditions (temperature and pressure)

Above and beyond the customer requirements, the final report included a summary of previous modifications, operating data, and engineering recommendations; and a discussion on potential limitations of the existing design.