Recent Advances in Intensified Ethylene Production—A Review

Abstract

Steam cracking is a well-established commercial technology for ethylene production. Despite decades of optimization efforts, the process is, nevertheless, highly energy and carbon intensive. This review covers the recent advances in alternative approaches that hold promise in the intensification of ethylene production from hydrocarbon feedstocks ranging from methane to naphtha. Oxidative as well as nonoxidative approaches using conventional, chemical looping, membrane, electrochemical, and plasma-assisted systems are discussed. We note that catalysts, electrocatalysts, and/or redox catalysts play critical roles in the performance of these alternative ethylene production technologies. Meanwhile, the complexity in producing polymer-grade ethylene also requires comprehensive considerations of not only (catalytic) reactions for ethylene formation but also feedstock preparation (e.g., air separation for oxidative conversion) and product separations. Although these alternative technologies have yet to be commercially implemented, a number of oxidative approaches have shown promise for close to order-of-magnitude reduction in energy consumption and CO2 emissions in comparison to steam cracking. Given the substantial progress in these research areas and the significant increase in C1 and C2 supplies resulting from the US shale gas revolution, we are excited by the enormous opportunities and potential impacts in the advancement and eventual implementation of significantly intensified ethylene production technologies.

Effect of thermal treatment on the stability of Na–Mn–W/SiO2 catalyst for the oxidative coupling of methane

“…The large abundance of natural gas has resulted in extensive research on exploring economically viable direct routes for methane conversion into higher value chemicals [1][2][3] .…”

Activation of Ethylene by N‐Heterocyclic Carbene Coordinated Magnesium(I) Compounds

“…[1] To day,e thylene is one of the most important feedstock chemicals used in industry,w ith more than 150 milliont onneso ft he gas produced in 2017. [2] It is transformedi nto numerousb ulk chemicals, for example, polyethylene, butenes, alcohols and aldehydes, using CÀCc oupling and other processes that often employ organometallic catalysts or co-catalysts. [3] While the majority of such catalysts are transition metal based, main group organometallic compounds certainly play ap art in the conversion of ethylene to value added products,b oth in the academic and industrial setting.…”

High-Throughput Analysis of Materials for Chemical Looping Processes

“…Chemical looping combustion (CLC) and chemical looping reforming are two chemical looping processes that provide a potentially energy-efficient solution to CO2 capture and are therefore of considerable interest to the utilities sector. [23,29,31,34,35] Other applications that leverage CL have been examined for the production of high purity, value-added chemicals such as hydrogen, [33,36,37] oxygen from non-cryogenic separation of air, [38,39] hydrocarbons, [15,17,40,41] and ammonia. [5,12,42] Despite promising results from pilot-scale studies and technoeconomic analyses for many of these CL processes, [43][44][45][46][47] the realization of industrial-scale units has encountered substantial challenges.…”

“…Chemical looping processes are a promising route for improving energy efficiency, [1][2][3][4] leveraging renewable energy sources, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] facilitating chemical conversions, [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and reducing undesirable emissions across many sectors of the chemical industry. [21][22][23][24][25][26] In a chemical looping (CL) process, the overall reaction is separated into multiple (typically two) subreactions, each mediated by the redox chemistry of a "looped" active material.…”