This paper will cover a progression of several improvement steps made to the tail-end acetylene converter system in the BASF FINA Petrochemicals Cracker at Port Arthur. For the first 20 months of operation, the acetylene converter was a source of reliability problems for the cracker. These problems resulted in off-spec incidents, and subsequent flaring, high ethylene losses, and frequent reactor switching. This paper will cover the improvement steps implemented, along with before/after performance.

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