Published October 2022
Steam cracking of hydrocarbons is one of the largest carbon dioxide (CO2)-emitting processes in the chemicals industry. Conventional cracking generates 0.85–1.8 metric tons of CO2 for every metric ton of ethylene produced. Globally, that amounts to more than 260 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.
At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26, Glasgow 2021), all the participating countries agreed to revisit and strengthen their emission targets. It appears inevitable that there will be an increased focus on the development of net-zero carbon emission ethylene production processes; either by using redesigned net-zero-emission technologies or by capturing and sequestering the CO2 produced in conventional processes.
In this review, we examine one such process. The configuration is, we believe, representative of the ethane cracker design that Dow has proposed for its net-zero carbon emission ethylene production facility in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada.
The cracking furnace is fueled by hydrogen-rich fuel (instead of natural gas) and emits nearly zero CO2 emissions. The hydrogen is blue hydrogen, produced by autothermal reforming of the methane by-product of cracking. The CO2 produced during the reforming process is captured in an amine unit and then purified, dried, compressed, and delivered to the pipeline for sequestration.
The selected configuration will reduce atmospheric emission of CO2 by approximately 1.2 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa), over the conventional process for 1.5 MMtpa ethylene production. We have also computed the levelized cost of carbon abatement (LCCA), which will be useful to the reader for a comparative economics analysis with other net-zero-carbon configurations for ethylene production.
This review is part of a series that S&P Global plans to publish on ethylene technologies with the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 90% or more. This set of reviews will be a valuable resource for planners, producers, and designers who are looking for an authentic comparison of comparative capital and production costs for different strategies of deep carbon emission reduction for ethylene production.