The site was established in 1941 during World War II to manufacture aspirin and sulfa drugs.
In 1988 Monsanto sold all of its Australian non-agricultural operations to Consolidated Press Holdings and Chemplex Australia Ltd was created.
[2] Pelligra purchased the vacated plant site in 2018 to build a business park.
The Styrene Plant consists of 7 units This is located at the west end of the site near Market Rd.
The ethane flows to the plant via a pipeline ultimately from Bass Strait oil and gas wells.
The cracker is a large box with many gas burners and long sections of pipe inside.
The ethane flows inside the pipe and is partially converted to ethylene and hydrogen.
One product of this cryogenic separation is a hydrogen rich stream that is used in the Litol plant.
In this plant the gaseous ethylene and the liquid benzene are combined with the aim of making ethylbenzene.
The products of this plant contains a mixture of benzene, ethylbenzene, and smaller quantities of a few polyethylbenzes.
It is a dehydrogenation reaction because two hydrogen atoms are removed from ethylbenzene to give styrene.
The reaction takes place in a large single fixed bed catalytic reactor.
Styrene is separated from ethyl benzene in a very tall continuously packed distillation tower.
To support the operating units the site has a boiler house, laboratories, maintenance workshops, warehouses an effluent treatment plant and offices.
There are 7 units in this plant The two main raw materials in this process are benzene and propylene.
Propylene is a gas and was supplied to the site from Mobil Refinery Altona which is about 7 km away by truck.
Each oxider was run at a carefully controlled temperature, pressure and level of residual oxygen to optimize the production of the hydroperoxide.
This section of the plant produced a large volume of residual air that contained small amounts of cumene; a highly odorous material.
The rich stream of CHP is not stored due to its high instability at this concentration, but sent straight to the cleavage section.
A small steady stream of sulfuric acid is added to catalyse the cleavage reaction.
In this reaction the CHP splits open and rearranges itself into two molecules; one each of phenol and acetone.
Since the reaction is very unstable the Cleavage Reactor operated under strict temperature and acidity control with a high level of acetone reflux.
This used a conventional steam fired reboiler distillation column in the previous or Scientific Design (SD) Phenol Plant.
The sulphuric acid used as a catalyst in the cleavage reactor left the process via the heavy ends.
The sulfate in this tar stream gave a blue tinge to the otherwise clear plume from number four boiler house stack.
Waste water was collected and treated at the site effluent treatment plant before being discharged into sewer.