Low Emission Ethylene Furnace

As the global temperature is rising due to the increase of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, governments are struggling to find cost-effective ways to meet the 2020 emission targets. In light of these developments, the European Commission is investigating the possibility to reduce CO₂ emissions from steam cracking furnaces by more than 25 percent. As compared to the power industry, the contribution of these cracking furnaces is limited, but in the framework of the chemical and petrochemical industry, these are major emission sources. Steam cracking furnaces are an integral part of ethylene plants in which the bulk chemicals for the plastic industry are produced. Due to the large capacity of the bulk chemicals produced along with the high energy demand of the cracking process itself, ethylene plants are significant contributors to CO₂ emissions. The new cracking furnace design proposed by Technip Energies can meet the target of the European committee. By modifying the heat recovery scheme, fuel consumption can be reduced by 30 percent and so can the associated CO₂ emissions.

The furnace modification can be done cost-effectively with positive profit margins and requires only short-term investments.

A revolutionary new design of ethylene furnaces is presented in this paper, which relies on a patent filed by Technip Energies. This concept leads to major changes in the ethylene plant energy balance as well as the flowsheet. The presentation analyzes the impact of lower generation of high pressure steam on electric power and sheds light on the CO₂ emissions balance for the ethylene plant as well as the power plant. Overall economics look promising.