The search for environmentally friendly solvents is over. GTC Vorro’s Joe Gentry, Vice President – Technology Licensing Division, recently spoke with Chemical Engineering on BTX Gold’s high-performance blended solvents. With BTX Gold, customers will benefit from energy savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
A newly launched series of blended solvents for the extraction of benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX) from a variety of feeds shows improved performance over single solvents, while avoiding environmentally problematic solvent components. The series, known as BTX Gold, was launched by GTC Vorro Technology (Houston, Tex.; www.gtcvorro.com) in November.
“Our work on solvent extraction has shown that BTX Gold generates better performance in aromatics extraction, in terms of selectivity, solvency, and mass transfer than single-component solvents,” says GTC Vorro VP, Technology Licensing, Joe Gentry. With the series of proprietary blends, GTC Vorro Technology focused on ensuring that all components meet the requirements of environmental regulations such as REACH in Europe and TSCA in the U.S.
BTX Gold has variations, depending on the application for which it is used. For example, one blend of the series is designed for de-aromatization of naphtha from steam-cracker feed using liquid-liquid extraction. Other blends are designed for removing BTX from pyrolysis gasoline, FCC gasoline, or coke-oven light oil. In addition to LLE, the BTX Gold solvents can also be used in extractive distillation applications.