A New Robust Regenerative Turbo-Reactor Concept For Clean Hydrocarbon Cracking

Abstract

The global energy consumption in the chemical and petrochemical industries is dominated by the highly energyintensive hightemperature hydrocarbon cracking process. This paper offers an attractive potential solution to decarbonise the cracking industry by renewable electrification whilst also improving the efficiency of energy transfer and enhancing the quality of the overall cracking process. Controlled endothermic cracking reactions are generated by direct mechanical energy transfer using a new electricdriven turboreactor to replace the fossilfuelled radiant unit in the conventional cracking plant. This study provides an introduction to the novel concept, focusing on how the unique threebladerow repeating stage design is exploited in order to drive the efficient energy transfer and transformation processes used to overcome the fundamental limitations of the conventional process, more specifically by increasing the yield and mitigating coke deposition. A combination of URANS and highfidelity LES are presented in order to probe the aerothermal flow physics and interactions in the rotor and diffuser. This study clearly demonstrates how the working principals of the elemental stage can be realised uniformly across the full regenerative turboreactor by exploiting a robust and naturally selfadjusting concept. This work highlights the highlevel of controllability of the turbomachine, allowing the cracking environment to be tailored during operation, for example, by conducting minor alterations to the rotational speed.