Catalytic Plate Reactors for Ethylene Production

Ethylene is a key product in petrochemical industries, produced by cracking of many types of feed stocks, ethane, propane, LPG, naphtha and gas-oil. Typical ethylene plant has 10 or more very large cracking furnaces, each furnace contain a large number of reaction tubes, the total fire box volume is 9000m³ which can be considered as most of the total process volume. Large amounts of steam added to achieve high yields of olefins and also to reduce coke deposition, but it produces many side products that have to be separated out, these effects the overall economics of the plant and creates some pollution problems. There are many technologies available each has different design geometry to reduce the coke deposition, but none eliminates the problem completely, for all process schemes the furnace has to be stopped for decoking within short time periods.

This research is amid to study the possibility of applying the catalytic plate reactor approach for ethylene production.

For more information please contact Dr Jon Lee.