The Badger BPA technology is used to produce high-purity bishenol A (BPA) product suitable for polycarbonate and epoxy resin applications. The product is produced over ion-exchange resin from phenol and acetone in a process featuring proprietary purification technology.
Acetone and excess phenol are reacted by condensation in an ion exchange resin-catalyzed reactor system (1) to produce p,p BPA, water and various byproducts. The crude distillation column (2) removes water and unreacted acetone from the reactor effluent. Acetone and lights are adsorbed into phenol in the lights adsorber (3) to produce a recycle acetone stream. The bottoms of the crude column is sent to the crystallization feed pre-concentrator (4), which distills phenol and concentrates BPA to a level suitable for crystallization.
BPA is separated from byproducts in a proprietary solvent crystallization and recovery system (5) to produce the adduct of p,p BPA and phenol. Mother liquor from the purification system is distilled in the solvent recovery column (6) to recover dissolved solvent. The solvent-free mother liquor stream is recycled to the reaction system. A purge from the mother liquor is sent to the purge cracking and recovery system (7) along with the process water to recover phenol. The purified adduct is processed in a BPA finishing system (8) to remove phenol from product, and the resulting molten BPA is solidified in the prill tower (9) to produce product prills suitable for the merchant BPA market.
Process features: The unique crystallization system produces a stable crystal that is efficiently separated from its mother liquor. These plants are extremely reliable and have been engineered to meet the operating standards of the most demanding refining and chemical companies. The catalyst system uses a unique upflow design that is beneficial to catalyst life and performance. High capacity operation has been fully demonstrated.
Licensor: Badger Licensing LLC
