UMIST Polymer Engineering Report

S F Bush

Introduction

Earlier works (Ref 1, Appendix A) on the cracking of hydrocarbons and chlorination of hydrocarbons has provided a general mechanism and explicit rate expressions for the formation of carbon which have been found to be consistent with observations in a number of practical cases. The purpose of this note is to consider how the treatment might be extended to combustions where oxygen rather than chlorine is the oxidant and where the temperatures involved are likely to cause cracking.

References

Ref 1: S F Bush, Mechanism of Cracking and Carbon Formation, Norwegian Institute of Technology, 16th August 1977.

Group II report, ICI Central Instrument Lab.

S F Bush

Summary

Two trains of methyl chloride chlorinators are currently in operation at Rocksavage Works. The chlorinators in one train (stream A) have internal diameters of 26 inches; the chlorinators in the other train (stream B have internal diameters of 32 inches. The second train works well, but the first train produces unacceptable quantities of soot and hexachloroethane. Experiments carried out on 1/9 linear scale models indicate that the different geometry is one cause, at least, of the different performances of the models and this conclusion holds over a large range of throughputs. The evidence for this view is summarised in this report.