By-products from production of Formaldehyde for Haldor Topsoe

Abstract: Formaldehyde is an important chemical which is used as an intermediate and for the production of urea-formaldehyde, which is used in the production of plywood. The purpose of this report is to investigate to how impurities in methanol, that is the raw material in formaldehyde production, will affect the production. This report have mainly looked at how the impurities affect the by-products. This project is done in collaboration with Haldor Topsøe A/S (HT). To be able to study the production an experimental set-up had to be made. It was executed in the attempt to be as close to an HT formaldehyde plant as possible. The different impurities were added one by one and then a mixture of the components were made. The production stream were analyzed by a mass spectrometer (MS). In all experiment the different impurities were added one-by-one. The impurities that were used were: ethanol, higher alcohols (1-butanol and 2-propanole), methyl formate (MF) and acetone. In all the experimental cases an increase in dimethyl ether (DME) concentration could be seen and for nearly all impurities an increase in dimetoxy methane (DMM) was also detected. The same results could be seen for the mixture, in which all the impurities were added. This means that the different impurities does not seem to react with one another. DME and DMM will not be a problem since DME already exist as a by-product today, and DMM would most likely react back to methanol and formaldehyde in the acidic environment which exist in the absorption tower.