Isooctane is commonly used in industrial and chemical applications. It is a standard substance for testing the anti-knock performance of gasoline, with an octane number rated at 100. When mixed into gasoline, it can dilute and reduce the content of harmful components such as olefins, aromatics, and sulfur in gasoline, while increasing the octane number of gasoline. It is an ideal blending component for high-octane automotive gasoline. Let's take a look at the current development status of isooctane in the industry market.
Isooctane, as a component of gasoline, not only enhances the octane number of gasoline but also has the characteristics of being clean and environmentally friendly, causing less pollution to the environment. It is an ideal additive component for finished gasoline and has a broad market space. In addition, isooctane can also be used in organic synthesis, solvents, gas chromatography analysis standards and diluents, etc., and is widely applied in the fields of medicine, chemical engineering, chemistry, etc.
At present, the isooctane industry in China is characterized by LPG deep processing enterprises as the mainstay and main business enterprises as the supplement. The proportion of isooctane production capacity of LPG deep processing enterprises in China exceeds 85% of the total capacity. However, for the main enterprises, China National Petroleum Corporation, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation and China
National Offshore Oil Corporation, the capacity proportion of their alkylation units is relatively small and the operating rate is low. The regional distribution of isooctane production enterprises in China is relatively concentrated, mainly located in four provinces: Shandong, Anhui, Henan and Zhejiang, with Shandong Province taking the lead. The production capacity of isooctane in Shandong Province accounts for more than 35%, ranking first. The western region accounts for 17%, ranking second. The Northeast region accounts for 13% and ranks third. China's isooctane production has maintained a generally good growth trend. From 2012 to 2018, the compound annual growth rate of domestic isooctane production was 4.3%. Due to the continuous decline in the operating rate of isooctane, by 2019, the domestic operating rate of isooctane was only around 50%, resulting in a significant drop in the growth rate of isooctane production. As of 2019, China's output of isooctane is approximately 10.0313 million tons.
Since the first LPG deep processing enterprise alkylation unit in China was put into operation in 2012, domestic alkylation units have been successively constructed, and the capacity of isooctane has been increasing at a relatively fast rate year by year. 2014 was a period of concentrated expansion of isooctane production capacity in China. By 2019, the isooctane production capacity exceeded 19 million tons per year, representing a 400% increase compared to 2013.
Alkylated gasoline is produced by the reaction of isobutane in LPG with butene-1, butene-2 and isobutene to form isooctane. It has the advantages of high octane number, good sensitivity, and no aromatic hydrocarbons, sulfur or olefins. The demand for alkylation products in oil blending will continue to grow.
The technology of isobutylene stacking and hydrogenation to produce isooctane in C4 hydrocarbons involves the stacking (dimerization) reaction of isobutylene to generate diisobutylene (DIB), and then using diisobutylene as the raw material, the hydrogenation reaction is carried out on a fixed-bed hydrogenation unit. Under suitable reaction conditions and the action of a hydrogenation catalyst, diisobutylene is hydrogenated to produce isooctane (also known as the indirect alkylation process). The obtained isooctane has a purity of 93%. After further fractionation and purification, isooctane with a purity of 99.8% can be obtained. It is the most ideal blending component for producing clean high-octane gasoline. The production process has mild operating conditions, does not corrode equipment and does not generate waste acid, and has good environmental protection performance, meeting the current strict environmental protection requirements.
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