Steam Cracking and EDC Furnace Simulation

Abstract

Industrial cracking furnaces for ethene and ethylene dichloride (EDC) production are highly energy intensive. Much effort has been exerted toward achieving higher thermal efficiency and product yield. Numerical modeling has shown to be useful in furnace design and optimization. The advantage of numerical modeling over experiments is that a wider operating range can be simulated, allowing theoretical optimum to be found as guidance for practical. Industrial steam cracking furnaces have been extensively studied via numerical simulations over the past few decades, leading to many interesting results that offer deep insights into steam cracking processes. In this chapter, progress in the modeling of industrial cracking furnaces for both ethene and EDC production that has taken place in the last 5 years is reviewed. The discussion on ethene cracking furnaces includes fully coupled furnace-reactor simulations for the furnaces, the investigation of radiative heat transfer, the heat transfer and flow boiling of complex hydrocarbon feedstock in convection sections, and the integrated operation and cyclic scheduling optimization of cracking furnace systems. For the EDC cracking furnace, the effect of the fuel gas allocation factor, CCl4 concentration, on the run length of the furnace is presented. In addition to the recent advances in cracking furnace modeling, the problems encountered by the current furnace design in fulfilling the new requirements of higher efficiency and lower emission of NOx and CO2 are detailed. The alternative approaches, which may provide a better solution for this issue, are given, with a potential research focus on cracking furnace design and optimization that may occur in the future.