Chemical Information for Propane

Applications

1. Propane can be used as fuel in cooking on many barbecues, portable stoves, and in motor vehicles.
2. Domestic and industrial fuel - Propane is the fastest growing fuel source in the Third World, especially in China and India replacing the traditional woods and coals. Propane is usually shipped as LPG, a blend of propane and butane. The warmer the country, the higher the butane content, commonly 50/50 and sometimes reaching 75% butane.
3. Refrigeration - Propane is also instrumental in providing off-the-grid refrigeration, also called gas absorption refrigerators. Made popular by the Servel company, propane-powered refrigerators are highly efficient, do not require electricity, and have no moving parts. Refrigerators built in the 1930s are still in regular use, with little or no maintenance. However, certain Servel refrigerators are subject to a recall for CO poisoning.
4. Vehicle fuel - The advantage of propane is its liquid state at room temperature and moderate pressure. This allows fast refill times, affordable fuel tank construction, and ranges comparable to (though still less than) gasoline. Meanwhile it is noticeably cleaner (both in handling, and in combustion), results in less engine wear (due to carbon deposits) without diluting engine oil (often extending oil-change intervals), and until recently was a relative bargain in North America.

Chemical Information and Process Technology

Propane is one of the feedstock for petrochemical industry, found mainly from the petroleum products either during refining or gas processing. Propane is not produced for its own sake, but as a byproduct of two other processes: natural gas processing and petroleum refining. The processing of natural gas involves removal of butane, propane, and large amounts of ethane from the raw gas, to prevent condensation of these volatiles in natural gas pipelines.

Additionally, oil refineries produce some propane as a by-product of production of cracking petroleum into gasoline or heating oil. The supply of propane cannot be easily adjusted to account for increased demand because of the by-product nature of propane production. About 85% of U.S. propane is domestically produced. The United States imports about 10-15% of the propane consumed each year. Propane is imported into the United States via pipeline and rail from Canada, and by tankers from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Norway and the United Kingdom. After it is produced, North American propane is stored in huge salt caverns located in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada, Mont Belvieu, Texas, and Conway, Kansas. These salt caverns were hollowed out in the 1940s and can store up to 80 million barrels of propane, if not more. When the propane is needed, most of it is shipped by pipelines to other areas of the Midwest, the North, and the South, for use by customers. Propane is also shipped by barge and rail car to selected U.S. areas.

Petrochemical industry relies heavily on gas as the feedstock. Propane together with butane are blended to produce LPG for the petrochemical industry. Some petrochemical crackers use LPG as the feedstock for further cracking into ethylene, propylene and C4 streams or known as butylenes.