Sinopec's New Environmental Protection Epichlorohydrin Process Initiated

The Ministry of Science and Technology of Sinopec Group Co. chaired the review of the new process for the synthesis of environmental-friendly epichlorohydrin and the review meeting of the 50,000 tons/year environmental-friendly epichlorohydrin process packages. The technology is the first green chemical technology in the world. Experts suggest that the transformation should be promoted with full consideration of industrial scale-up.

Since 2003, Baling Petrochemical and China Academy of Petrochemical Sciences have jointly launched a project to tackle key problems, which lasted 16 years from the development of catalysts and pilot-scale processes to the start-up of the pilot plant in 2016. Fixed-bed reactions, separation, distillation of products, investigation of catalyst life and on-line regeneration of catalysts have been completed. Technological research has opened up the whole process, developed a new green and clean production process of epichlorohydrin, and developed a 50,000 tons/year process package for the first time.

Compared with the traditional chlorohydrin production process, the new green and clean production process of epichlorohydrin has lower material consumption; "three wastes" emission is greatly reduced, in which the reduction rate of wastewater is more than 90%. The products of epichlorohydrin produced meet the national standard of high-grade products and fully meet the requirements of epoxy resin production. In the process of project development, 33 patents for invention in China were applied for, of which 25 were authorized with independent intellectual property rights.