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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;swagge1, post: 990863, member: 22402&quot;]I know that there are a few chemistry and engineering buffs on this forum so I thought that it might be interesting to describe the multi-million dollar silver catalyst change that was completed in my unit last month.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am a process operator (think Homer Simpson) for an ethylene oxide unit here in Louisiana.&nbsp; I have been working here as an operator for 7 and a half years.&nbsp; Our process involves using a silver catalyst to help combine ethylene and oxygen into ethylene oxide (EO). <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_oxide" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_oxide" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_oxide</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The plant I work in, as well as most petrochemical plants, run 24/7 365 barring any major process upsets (shutdowns) and turnarounds/catalyst changes.&nbsp; Every year or so our EO units shut down for about a month to fix broken equipment that could not be fixed while running, upgrade and add equipment and piping, and change catalyst if necessary.&nbsp; The catalyst change is what this post will focus on.</p><p><br /></p><p>Without going into too much detail, because the catalyst technology is proprietary, I will explain silvers role in the catalyst change.&nbsp; The catalyst contains upwards of 30% silver by weight and is impregnated to an inert carrier. Now 30% silver doesn&#039;t sound like much, but consider that our catalyst change required roughly 300,000 lbs of catalyst.&nbsp; At 30% silver by weight that is 90,000 lbs of pure silver!&nbsp; In a nutshell as the catalyst produces more and more EO it begins to &quot;age&quot; over time and has to be changed out with fresh catalyst so that unit efficiency can improve and unwanted byproduct is minimized.&nbsp; During turnaround/catalyst change the old catalyst is removed and recovered.&nbsp; This recovered or &quot;spent&quot; catalyst is sent back to the manufacturer ,CRI, and the silver is recovered.&nbsp; After the reactor is empty of spent catalyst fresh catalyst can be loaded and the unit can be started up again.</p><p><br /></p><p>I thought some of you would be interested to know of one of silver&#039;s major industrial uses.&nbsp; If you have any questions I&#039;ll try to answer them as accurately as possible as long as I don&#039;t think the answer will get me in trouble <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie9" alt=":eek:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a picture of the inert catalyst carrier before the silver is added to it.</p><p><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39/swagge1/Misc1/eocatalyst.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This is a link to our catalyst producer.&nbsp; It has a small picture of the catalyst impregnated with silver.&nbsp; Note the gray color.</p><p><a href="http://www.cricatalyst.com/products/exo/High_Selectivity_Catalyst.aspx" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.cricatalyst.com/products/exo/High_Selectivity_Catalyst.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.cricatalyst.com/products/exo/High_Selectivity_Catalyst.aspx</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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