Process research group is responsible for not only meeting the scientific and research requirements of petrochemical industry, but also covering the strategic plans of NPC. This group is responsible for developing the technology and basic engineering design of pilot plants in line with the petrochemical industry progress, through joint cooperation with known industrial companies. One of the main missions of this group is to organize and manage the research activities required to develop the know-how of the chemical production and processes mentioned in the strategic plan of NPC, that could be fulfilled through the below route for any specified process:

• Comprehensive investigation and identification of the process specification
• Optimization
• Development
•  Acquisition of the know-how

which, eventually leads to value added products and profitability.

 Research priorities
Process research group is concentrated on developing the technology, know-how, basic engineering, as well as the commercialization of the following 14 processes:  

•          Propylene via Methanol (PVM)
•           Steam cracking
•          Natural gas conversion to methanol
•          Di-methyl ether (DME)
•          Acetic acid homogeneous catalyst
•          Naphtha isomerization catalyst (I8)
•           Synthesis gas production
•           Vinyl acetate monomer (VAM)
• Ethylene oxide (EO)
•          Propylene oxide (PO)
•           Simultaneous production of propylene and i-butene in MTBE
•          Ammonia
•           Methanol to Olefins (MTO)
•          P-xylene from Toluene alkylation with methanol

 Goals (missions)

-          Acquisition of the know-how of the aforementioned principal research fields
-          Optimization and development of the current employed technologies
-          Facilitating the industrial operations and feasibility study of present technologies
-          Debottlenecking of petrochemical plants
-          Developing and improving the catalysts used in petrochemical plants

 

Achievements

-      Implementing more than 200 projects on different fields in cooperation with research centers, industrial expertise, and universities, i.e., olefin, DME,  PVM, PDH, oxidative coupling of methane (OCM), synthesis gas, catalyst recovery, wastes, hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), sulfur, methanol, bisphenol A, membrane, separation towers, chloro-alkali, aromatic oxidation.

-          Registering 15 Iranian and 3 European patents

-          Joint venture development of PVM process with Lurgi

-          Construction, installation and start-up of PVM demonstration plant            (1 MT/day)

-      Submitting the license and basic engineering design of PVM plant (120,000 MT/year) to Fanavaran Petrochemical Company in cooperation with Lurgi  

-  Submitting the license and basic engineering design of DME plant (800,000 MT/year) to Zagros Petrochemical Company in cooperation with Haldore Topsoe

-          Preparation of DME basic engineering design package (100,000 MT/year)

-          Basic and detail engineering design of DME pilot plant (1 MT/day) in Mahshahr

-          Basic engineering design of a multi-purpose steam cracking furnace pilot plant (15 Kg/hr)

-          Basic engineering design of VAM process

-          Basic engineering design of synthesis gas production through steam reforming

-          Basic engineering design of methanol production

-          Fundamental bench-scale research activities on PDH process to develop the basic engineering design

-          Developing new catalyst systems to improve Fanavaran acetic acid production process

-          The capability of producing acetic acid industrial catalysts (Fanavaran petrochemical complex)

-          Generating the kinetics of different catalytic processes

-          Recovery of precious metals out of used catalysts

-          Development of acetic acid process

-          Basis design engineering of ATR reforming in pilot scale

-          Development of naphtha isomerization catalyst (I8) in Isfahan refinery

-          Plasma cracking of heavy hydrocarbons

 Equipments and facilities

-          PVM Bench-scale reactor for testing the catalyst performance

-          PVM pilot plant (1.5 kg/hr methanol feedstock)  

-          PVM demonstration plant

-          Capability of simulation, optimization and advanced control of steam cracking furnaces according to customers’ orders

-          PDH bench-scale set-up

-          Methanol carbonylation bench-scale set-up

-          Aromatic oxidation bench- scale set-up

-          Steam cracking furnace bench- scale set-up

-          GHR synthesis gas bench- scale set-up

-          Methanol pilot plant

-          VAM pilot plant

-          Ethylene oxide pilot plant

-          Synthesis gas via steam reforming pilot plant

-          Olefin pilot plant

-          Ethylene oxide pilot plant

-          Cooling tower pilot plant