Boilers play a key and diverse role in the complex and sophisticated production systems of the chemical industry. It is no ordinary equipment, but the core pillar of many chemical production processes, playing an indispensable role in energy supply, temperature control, waste treatment, energy efficiency and environmental protection.
A boiler is a device that heats a liquid (usually water) to a high temperature or converts it to steam by burning a variety of fuels, such as coal, natural gas, petroleum, and biomass. The high-temperature, high-pressure steam produced is used for a wide range of purposes, such as driving a turbine generator, supplying heat for industrial processes or providing power. It can be said that the boiler is to ensure the stable operation of the chemical industry “power heart”, its reasonable operation and maintenance of chemical production to achieve efficient and sustainable development is critical, but also to reduce the negative impact on the environment is the key to the chemical industry is essential equipment.
In the complex and delicate chemical production process, the boiler can be called extremely important core equipment, the steam generated is the indispensable source of heat and power for the survival and development of chemical enterprises. Steam boiler with its strong steam production capacity, widely used in chemical fertilizer plants, refineries, feed factories, paint factories, plastics factories, glass factories, sulfuric acid factories, coal chemical industry, petrochemicals and many other different areas of the chemical industry, for all types of chemical production process provides a key support.
Steam cracking occupies a crucial position in the entire chemical production field and is one of the core processes for the production of many basic petrochemical feedstocks. Globally, approximately 68% of propylene is produced through the steam cracking process, while another 29% is obtained through the catalytic cracking (FCC) process.
Specifically, the steam cracking process involves the deep pyrolysis of saturated hydrocarbons derived from natural gas or petroleum at high temperatures and under specific conditions in the presence of steam. During this process, the saturated hydrocarbon molecules undergo complex bond breaking and reorganization reactions under the combined action of high temperature and steam, resulting in the production of basic petrochemical feedstocks, such as ethylene and propylene, which are critical to the chemical industry.
These basic raw materials are like the cornerstones of the chemical industry building, and are the basis for the manufacture of various plastics, synthetic fibers, rubber, and many fine chemicals. In this critical steam cracking process, the high-temperature, high-pressure steam heat provided by the boiler, like the “catalyst” for the chemical reaction, is necessary for these complex chemical reactions to occur smoothly.
Without sufficient steam heat provided by the boiler, the steam cracking reaction will not be able to reach the required reaction temperature, and it will be difficult to efficiently produce large quantities of ethylene, propylene and other basic chemical raw materials, and the supply chain of the entire chemical industry will be seriously affected as a result.
The chemical production process covers numerous complex separation and synthesis stages, in which operations such as distillation, degassing, drying, filtration, membrane separation, adsorption, and crystallization are all highly dependent on the precise supply of heat. The principle behind these processes is mainly based on the fact that the boiling point or vapor pressure of a substance exhibits different characteristics depending on the temperature.
The distillation process, for example, is the most common and important method of separating the components of a liquid mixture in chemical production. In a distillation tower, the difference in boiling points of different substances is used to separate the components by heating so that the low-boiling-point components of the mixture are preferentially vaporized, and then the vapors are drawn off and cooled and condensed.
In this process, the heat of the steam generated by the boiler is steadily and efficiently transferred to the mixture in the distillation tower through various heat exchange equipment, providing continuous heat support for the distillation process and ensuring the smooth progress of the separation process.
In addition, in the degassing process, the gas dissolved in the liquid can be made to escape through heating; the drying process uses heat to make the water in the material evaporate; filtration, membrane separation and adsorption and other operations, although mainly based on the differences in the physical properties of the material, but in some cases, appropriate temperature conditions are also needed to optimize the separation effect, and these temperature conditions are often also ensured by the boiler The heat of the steam generated is guaranteed.
It is worth noting that the steam heat generated by the boiler also plays a unique role in the chemical absorption and heating process, helping to create a specific vacuum environment. For example, in some of the need for decompression distillation or chemical reactions under vacuum conditions in the process, through the use of steam injection pumps and other equipment, steam as a power source, can form a certain degree of vacuum in the system for chemical absorption and heating to create more favorable conditions for the reaction, thereby significantly improving the reaction efficiency and product quality.
The chemical industry, due to the diversity and complexity of its production processes, has extremely diverse needs for boiler types and performance. In the long-term development process, gradually formed a variety of boiler types designed for different specific needs, each of which plays a unique role in chemical production.
Steam boilers, with their powerful ability to generate high-temperature and high-pressure steam, have deservedly become the standard configuration and core equipment of large-scale production lines in the chemical industry.
In large-scale ethylene production units, the high-temperature and high-pressure steam generated by steam boilers is like a powerful “power engine” that directly drives the operation of the cracking furnace. Inside the cracking furnace, petroleum hydrocarbon raw materials under the action of high-temperature steam, rapid cracking reaction occurs, decomposition to generate ethylene, propylene and other important basic chemical raw materials.
Take a set of large ethylene production unit as an example, every hour may need thousands of tons or even tens of thousands of tons of high-temperature and high-pressure steam to meet the operational needs of the cracking furnace, the steam boiler stable and continuous supply of such a large amount of steam, is to ensure that the ethylene production unit is highly efficient and stable operation of the key.
Similarly, in the ammonia industry, steam provided by steam boilers also plays an important and indispensable role. In the ammonia synthesis process, raw gas is compressed by compressors to extremely high pressures to meet the conditions required for the ammonia reaction. A large portion of the power to drive these large compressors comes from steam generated by steam boilers.
The steam drives the compressors through a turbine to provide strong pressure conditions for the ammonia reaction, thus ensuring efficient ammonia production. It can be said that in the ammonia industry, the stable operation of the steam boiler is directly related to the entire production system capacity and efficiency.
For some process segments in the chemical industry that have relatively mild temperature requirements and do not require excessively high temperatures, such as equipment cleaning and temperature control processes, hot water boilers have become the ideal choice by virtue of their unique advantages.
In pharmaceutical companies, the cleaning of production equipment is an important part of ensuring the quality and safety of drugs. The cleaning process requires the use of hot water at the right temperature to completely remove contaminants such as drugs, impurities and microorganisms left on the surface of the equipment. The hot water boiler can accurately heat the water to the set temperature range and steadily supply hot water to meet the needs of large-scale equipment cleaning in pharmaceutical companies.
For example, in some large-scale pharmaceutical production lines, may need to use thousands of cubic meters of hot water every day to clean all kinds of reaction kettles, pipelines, filling equipment, etc., hot water boilers can continue to provide a stable supply of hot water to meet the quality requirements, to ensure that the equipment cleaning work efficiently and thoroughly, so as to effectively avoid contamination of the equipment and the quality of the drugs caused by the problem.
In the storage of chemical products, the precise control of temperature is also crucial. Certain chemical products, such as some high-viscosity liquid resins, easy to crystallize chemicals, etc., more sensitive to the storage temperature. If the ambient temperature is too low, these products may appear solidification, crystallization and other phenomena, resulting in product quality decline or even loss of value.
At this point, the hot water boiler can be heated by heating circulating water, heat transfer to the environment around the storage equipment, precise regulation of the temperature of the storage environment, so that it is always maintained in the temperature range of the product suitable for storage, effectively preventing the product due to low temperature and quality problems, to protect the quality of the product in the storage period of stability.
Thermal Oil Boiler, also commonly known as Heat Transfer Oil Furnace, uses heat transfer oil as a unique heat transfer medium, and is specially designed to meet the needs of those complex processes in the chemical industry that have special requirements for temperature, such as high temperature, no pressure or micro-pressure.
The Thermal Oil Boiler demonstrates excellent temperature control during the reactor heating process. It can precisely transfer the heat to the reactor through the thermal oil, so that the material inside the kettle is evenly heated and quickly warmed up to the precise reaction temperature. Compared with the traditional steam heating method, thermal oil furnace does not need to bear high pressure when heating at high temperature, which greatly reduces the safety hidden danger caused by high temperature and high pressure.
For example, in some of the production of high-performance engineering plastics in the chemical industry, the polymerization reaction in the reactor needs to be carried out at a high temperature of 250 ℃ - 300 ℃, and the precision of the temperature control requirements are very high, the error range is usually within ± 1 ℃.
The hot carrier boiler can accurately meet this process requirement, through the precise adjustment of the flow and temperature of the heat transfer oil, to ensure that the materials in the reaction kettle are always in the optimal reaction temperature state, thus effectively improving the stability of the quality of the product and production efficiency.
In the evaporation system, the Thermal Oil Boiler also plays an important role. It can provide stable and continuous heat for the evaporation process, so that the solvent in the solution quickly evaporate, to achieve efficient concentration of the solution.
Salt brine evaporation process, for example, the Thermal Oil Boiler through the heat transfer oil will be transferred to the evaporator, so that the brine in the evaporator heat evaporation, water vaporization and separation, and ultimately get a high purity salt products. In this process, the stable heat supply of the Thermal Oil Boiler is the key factor to ensure the evaporation process efficiently and continuously, which can effectively improve the salt production efficiency and product quality.
The advantages of Thermal Oil Boilers are more prominent especially in the field of fine chemical production where the requirements for temperature control precision are almost harsh. Fine chemical products usually have a complex molecular structure, fine synthesis process, etc., the production process is extremely sensitive to small changes in temperature.
Hot carrier boiler with its precise temperature control capabilities, can provide stable and accurate heat source for fine chemical production, effectively improve product quality and production efficiency, to meet the fine chemical industry for high-quality, high-precision production of strict requirements.
Selecting a boiler suitable for the chemical industry requires comprehensive consideration of several key factors.
The boiler capacity should be determined based on the heat load curve or heat balance diagram, taking into account the heat loss of the pipeline, the self-consumption of heat in the boiler room, and the waste heat that can be utilized. If it is difficult to obtain the heat load curve, it can be estimated on the basis of the maximum hourly heat consumption in production, heating or living, and then adjusted by coefficients.
The heat supply parameters of the boiler room need to be matched with the heat parameter requirements of the users. When selecting the boiler, it should be avoided that the difference between the rated outlet pressure and temperature of the boiler and the pressure and temperature used by the users is too large, so as not to cause excessive investment and low thermal efficiency.
At present, small and medium-sized chemical enterprises tend to circulating fluidized bed boilers in power boiler selection. In the actual project, in addition to considering the capacity and parameters, should also be based on fuel characteristics and furnace type to select the appropriate combustion method.
Efficient boilers are vital. Boiler output, number of units and other performance needs to adapt to changes in heat load, to facilitate economic management. Although a single full-load operation of the boiler is more efficient than two low load operation of the boiler, but from the perspective of production safety, need to consider a single operating boiler failure can be quickly started to ensure uninterrupted heat supply and production.
Try to select boilers with the same capacity or consistent combustion equipment. If you have to use different models, no more than two, in order to reduce the layout of equipment and management problems.
Steam boilers occupy an important position in the chemical industry, mainly due to the following advantages.
Steam is a key source of heat and energy in many processes in chemical production. From heating reactors and distillation columns to driving turbines, steam is indispensable. Steam boilers use water as a fuel to generate steam, providing reliable and efficient power to support chemical production.
Chemical production requires extremely precise temperature and pressure control, which directly affects product quality. Steam boilers equipped with advanced temperature and pressure control systems can ensure that the steam produced meets quality and stability standards, which is of great significance in maintaining the purity and quality of chemicals.
Reliable Safety Performance
The chemical industry involves hazardous, volatile substances, and safety is a top priority. Steam boilers are designed with advanced safety devices and undergo rigorous quality testing to meet the highest safety standards, ensuring worker safety while reducing the risk of accidents and production downtime.
The chemical industry is highly competitive and companies are committed to reducing costs and improving efficiency. Energy-efficient steam boilers can reduce fuel consumption and lower operating costs; their reliability and durability can also reduce maintenance costs and downtime, bringing long-term cost savings.
Environmental sustainability is an important goal for the chemical industry. Modern steam boilers use clean fuels and emit fewer pollutants, helping chemical companies achieve environmental goals and meet strict environmental regulations.
In summary, boilers are a core component of the chemical industry, and their diverse functions are the basis for realizing efficient and sustainable chemical production. Whether it is to provide steam for critical chemical reactions or to ensure production safety and environmental compliance, boilers play an irreplaceable role. Only with an in-depth understanding of boiler functions, types and selection criteria can chemical companies optimize their production processes and gain an edge in the competitive marketplace.
This article systematizes the functions of boilers in the chemical industry and other content. If you feel that some parts of the elaboration is not deep enough, or want to add or subtract cases, feel free to tell me to further modify.
