Shanghai Science and Technology Award: Agitated‑type C₄ Sulfuric‑acid Alkylation Green and Low‑carbon Complete‑set Technology and Its Engineering Application

Recently, the 2025 Shanghai Science and Technology Conference and the 2025 Shanghai Science and Technology Award Ceremony was held. As the primary completing institution, ECUST received a total of 17 awards, including 9 first prizes, 6 second prizes, 1Youth Outstanding Science and Technology Contribution Award, and 1 International Science and Technology Cooperation Award.

C₄ hydrocarbons represent vital clean‑energy feedstocks and fundamental chemical raw materials. Sulfuric‑acid alkylation delivers a critical deep‑processing route for their utilisation. The agitated‑type process dominates global deployment with more than 300 commercial units worldwide and over 100 units in China.

This conventional process suffers from abundant by‑product formation, equipment corrosion, waste‑acid pollution and prominent safety risks. Targeting major demands for the green transition of the oil‑gas sector, the project team spent more than ten years innovating reaction engineering, catalytic materials and intensified process equipment. A million‑ton‑scale industrial cluster for clean‑gasoline‑component production has been established.

The project boasted the following major technical innovations.

First, it developed feedstock‑purification and reaction‑intensification technologies and equipment. Its counter‑current pulsed‑oscillation extraction cut key impurities by over 90 %, while custom additives and reactor technologies reduce by‑products and tackled heat‑ and mass‑transfer challenges.

Second, the team invented a globally original non‑alkali neutralisation‑refining process and matching equipment. It broke the 5‑μm droplet‑separation limit via intensified separators and high‑performance desulphurisation adsorbents, achieving zero water intake and zero wastewater discharge.

Third, China’s first home‑grown alkylation waste‑acid recycling technology was achieved. Optimised incineration‑pyrolysis furnaces decomposed waste acid efficiently; self-developed vanadium-based catalysts and high-efficiency mist eliminators deeply removed acid mist from tail gas.

These technical advances were first deployed at the world‑largest 400 kt/a commercial plant. Four industrial units were in operation with another two under construction. The outdated alkali‑washing process had been eliminated, resolving long‑standing challenges of agitated sulfuric‑acid alkylation, mitigating equipment corrosion and achieving inherent plant safety, thus enabling green‑low‑carbon upgrading of widely‑used imported alkylation technologies.

The project held 35 Chinese and three US authorised invention patents. One technology was listed in China’s Catalogue for the Promotion of Green Technologies (2020). Its clean‑fuel output could serve 180 million fuel‑powered vehicles annually, boosting high‑quality alkylation‑industry development and China’s low‑carbon energy transition. It was verified by the National Sulfur and Sulfuric Acid Industry Information Centrethatthetechnology delivered million‑ton‑scale waste‑acid resource recovery and occupied over 60 % of China’s alkylation waste‑acid‑treatment market.