ABOUT J-island!
What is it?It is an island near Jurong! Do you see that red patch over there? Yes, there. It is the J-Island! (also known as Jurong Island)
The History
Do you know when J-Island was opened? The answer is October 2000! However, the actual building begins way back when we were little babies, in other words, the reclamation began in 1995. J-Island currently has a total land area of more than 3,000 hectares! (tell you a secret, there will be about 200 additional hectares by the time reclamation is completed! oh gosh that's huge!"
Reasons behind its creation
Our Government took the opportunity to grow the petrochemical industry as a choice that will significantly produce economic growth. This was proven by the success of starting off the petroleum industries in the 1970s.
By the 1980s, after a decade of rapid industrialisation, there were not enough industrial land on Singapore mainland. The idea of joining the southern islands off Jurong to form one island to create more industrial land was therefore used.
J-Island Today
Today, J-Island is home to over 88 leading petroleum, petrochemical, specialty chemical and supporting companies with more than S$24billion in fixed assets investment on Jurong Island. Industry luminaries such as ExxonMobil and Shell have already established a strong presence on Jurong Island and are poised to reap the benefits of comprehensive infrastructure and production synergies from this unique cluster development.
Future Directions
At J-Island, there is a constant push for advancement. Forward-looking plans are made constantly to thrust J-Island into the future, continuously challenging new frontiers and trends. Plans are underway to reach the aim of having, by 2010, 150 companies operating on the island, providing employment to 15,000 workers, with an output of 22 million tonnes of chemicals a year.
In pursuit of the vision to develop Jurong Island into the safest and cleanest world-class chemicals hub, new areas are identified for development. These include research and development (R&D), total business capabilities, manpower capabilities and IT infrastructure.
CHEMISTRY!
Manufacture of OlefinsOlefins are also known as alkenes, serving as a feedstock for the petrochemical industry because they can participate in a wide variety of reactions. Examples of olefins include ethylene and propylene.
In the 1940s, ExxonMobil Chemical commercialised the steam cracking of hydrocarbons, a process which produces olefins. Today, it is the only major olefins producer with pyrolysis-reactor technology that delivers the highest olefin yields in the petrochemical industry, enabling an extensive range of the most essential feedstocks to be processed, such as ethylene and propylene, which account for 50%-60% of all organic chemicals.
However, due to their relatively high reactivities, only very limited amounts of olefins exist in natural gas and crude oil. Hence, they must be manufactured by cracking processes. In America, the dominant hydrocarbon feeds include Naphtha. Most C4 olefins are obtained from catalytic cracking, with less than 10% coming from steam cracking.
Referring to the diagram, the process first begins with the hydrocarbon feeds heated with steam to ~1050C and fed to the reactor tubes. Cracked products exit at ~850C and are rapidly quenched to 300C to prevent secondary reactions. Products are scrubbed to remove H2S and CO2, and then dried. C2 and C3 components, such as ethylene and propylene, are separated by fractional distillation at low temperatures. C4 components must be separated by chemical means because their boiling points are too similar, hence fractional distillation would prove to be of no use here.
This diagram shows how natural gas liquids, associated gas liquids and gas oil and naphtha can undergo steam cracking to create ethylene and propylene. (Naphtha -->Ethylene + Propylene) Naphtha can also be used in catalytic reforming to produce benzene.In 2000, a study conducted by the American Chemical Society as well as other various papers revealed that increased light olefin yields during catalytic steam cracking are mainly due to a surface volume effect and not to a traditional catalytic effect. As the surface to volume ratio increases, this also determines the increase in yields with respect to the steam-cracking process.
Manufacture of Polyolefins
A polyolefin is a polymer produced from a simple olefin as a monomer. For instance, polyethylene is the polyolefin produced by polymerizing the olefin ethylene.
Poly-alpha-olefins (PAOs), a specific type of olefin, are synthetic fluids effective at both low and high temperatures, such as occurs during operation of internal combustion engines. They provide superior oxidation and hydrolytic stability and high film strength. Having a high molecular weight, lower volatility, higher viscosity index (VI), and lower pour point than mineral oil, ExxonMobil Chemical offers SpectraSyn Ultra PAOs as highly useful and functional base fluids for synthetic lubricants used in passenger car engines and fibre optics.
PAOs are prepared by the polymerization of alpha-olefins (α-olefins) using a Friedel-Crafts catalyst such as BF3 or AlCl3. The PAO typically is then hydrogenated to stabilize the polymer against oxidation and degradation.
In the PAO production process, 1-decene is used as the starting material. Polymers of 1-decene and mixtures of 1-decene with 1-octene and/or 1-dodecene generally result in base fluids having a high viscosity index and low pour point. 1-decene and other linear alpha-olefins are made from ethylene. The polymerization of ethylene usually produces a wide range of α-olefins, from 1-butene to 1-C20 and higher α-olefins, with the product distribution governed by the degree of polymerization. The higher α-olefins, such as C14 or higher, generally are not used as starting materials for PAO production because the resulting polymers have undesirable properties such as high pour point and high volatility that render them unsuitable for use as high performance functional fluids. Hence, current PAO manufacturing processes utilise lower α-olefins, such as C8, C10, and α-olefins, as starting materials.
Manufacture of Paraxylene (C8H10): (1,4-Dimethylbenzene) & Benzene (C6H6)
Paraxylene (p-xylene) and benzene are both aromatic hydrocarbons, because their compounds have a sweet scent which came from the impurities within. p-xylene is based on benzene with two methyl substituents. It includes several molecular structures; only a few are used commercially. p-xylene coating has very high electrical resistivity and resists moisture penetration. It can produce polyester which is used in fibres for clothing and carpeting, X-ray, video and audiotape film.
Benzene is a colorless and flammable liquid with a sweet smell and a relatively high melting point. It is highly important, a major raw material for the production of styrene, which is used to produce polystyrene foam insulation. (which actually saved saved more than 23 billion litres of fuel oil world-wide during the energy crisis in the ‘70s.) Benzene is also used to produce vehicle tyres, detergents, solvents, dyes, cosmetics, aspirin and home care products.
In ExxonMobil Chemical, the PxMax process is used to produce both p-Xylene and benzene. This is a vapor-phase reaction in a fixed bed reactor. Toluene feed, combined with hydrogen-rich recycle gas, is preheated and passed through the catalyst bed. Disproportionation occurs here, at moderate temperature and pressure, to produce a p-xylene-rich xylene product along with co-product benzene. The by-product yields are small. The reactor effluent is cooled by heat exchange and the liquid products are separated from the recycle gas. The separated liquid is stripped to remove the light ends and then fractionated to recover a very high purity benzene product and a highly enriched p-xylene stream for recovery of p-xylene. Unreacted toluene is recycled.
Observations of Industrial Safety
Air monitoring is a legal requirement for chemicals such as benzene, which have an occupational exposure limit; the legal maximum air concentration permissible in the workplace assuming that it does not cause health effects in workers over a working lifetime daily exposure. The European Commission imposes a limit of 1 ppm (1 part per million, in milligrams benzene per cubic meter air) in the workplace.
ABOUT ExxonMobil!
ExxonMobil Chemical: An IntroductionAmong all oil companies, ExxonMobil Chemical is ranked 1st globally in proven oil and gas reserves. The company was established in 1999, with the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Being the largest publicly traded integrated oil and gas company in the world, it contributes 3% of the world’s oil and 2% of the world’s energy. Its principal products include basic olefins and aromatics, ethylene glycol and polyethylene; synthetic lubricant base stocks as well as lubricant additives, propylene packaging films and catalysts.
A Strong Leader in the Petrochemical Industry
The company holds strong positions in the supply of many of the largest-volume and highest-growth petrochemicals in the global economy, significantly being one of the largest (or even being the largest) producers of olefins, polyolefins as well as aromatics such as paraxylene and benzene.
