Ethylene is one of the most important building blocks in the chemical industry and provides the starting point for many essential consumer products; e.g. paints, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. Conventionally, ethylene is produced from ethane through steam cracking at the refineries. However, harsh reaction condition (850°C reaction temperature) and potential hazardous by-product H2 formation through steam cracking cause the need to look for alternative safer routes of ethylene production. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is working on a novel route (ODH) of ethylene production, which produces water instead of hydrogen as a by-product during ethylene production. Our initial techno-economic analysis indicates that the minimum selling price of ethylene has to be around $1.85/kg to make the ODH process to be profitable. This presentation will describe the effects of the presence of steam (as a diluent) on the ODH process economics, and process energy efficiency. Additionally, a detailed inherent process safety analysis result of the ODH process will be presented to indicate the most crucial units of the process.
