(485i) Electrified Ethane Cracking Reactor Design and Modeling

The need to reduce the carbon intensity of chemical manufacturing creates an opportunity to not only create processes that produce no emissions but are much more efficient, cost effective and process intensified. Electrification of industrial processes is being frequently mentioned as an option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy-intensive industries. The increasing availability of cheap renewable electricity provides an opportunity to decarbonize energy intensive processes. As part of this decarbonization effort, the commodity chemical industry is an important target due to its large energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions.

One potential paradigm for electrification involves replacing the use of steam, generated by burning fossil fuels, as a source of heat in chemical processes to processes with direct electrical heating using renewable energy sources. Steam cracking of hydrocarbons is widely practiced, and there is significant industrial interest in the electrification of this process. Steam crackers rely on fossil fuel combustion to heat their furnaces, making them CO₂ intensive. The challenge is to develop a technologically and economically feasible solution.

This work focuses on the design of an electrical resistance heating of the cracking reactor and models for temperature profiles and concentration gradients along the multiple dimensions of the reactor. Various designs are considered and insights on the kinetic and transport phenomena presented.