OCM & Steam Cracker Integration

Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM) offers a synergistic integration opportunity with Steam Crackers. Steam cracking is a highly endothermic reaction that fires large amounts of fuel gas, thereby emitting large amounts of CO2. OCM is a highly exothermic reaction that can offset a portion of the energy needs for the Steam Cracker, thereby reducing firing requirements and hence, CO2 emissions. Normally, Steam Crackers produce excess fuel gas recovered from the cracker effluent The excess fuel gas can be converted to valuable chemicals in OCM, thereby improving feedstock yield while simultaneously lowering the CO2 foot of the Steam Cracker. Some of the salient features of this technology will be discussed in this paper