Decarbonization for Ethylene plants is an essential requirement to meet the objectives of the net zero commitment made globally. Technip Energies (T.EN) has introduced its Low-Emission Cracking Furnace technology to achieve a low-emission ethylene plant. This innovative technology has the potential to reduce cracking furnace direct CO2 emissions by more than 30 percent upon adoption and provides the largest emission reduction compared to alternative high efficiency furnace designs. Serving as a corner stone for electrification of the back-end, integration with the power infra structure and implementation of partial or full hydrogen firing, this type of cracking furnace is meant to support the energy transition and provide an economically sound route to the full decarbonization of ethylene plants at term.
The Primary Feed-Effluent Transfer Line Exchanger (PFEE) is the key innovation to enable the T.EN Low-Emission Cracking Furnace design to proceed. Positioned at the primary quench location, the PFEE receives the cracked gas directly from the radiant coils. By replacing the high-pressure steam generation service on the shell side by heating the radiant coil feed instead, the PFEE provides pre-heating of the feed/steam mixture upstream of the cracking coils.
This novel design approach makes the T.EN Low-Emission Cracking Furnace unique in the landscape of available cracking technologies. Recently T.EN has developed and manufactured a PFEE specifically for this application. This novel PFEEs has subsequently been subjected to a series of tests at relevant operating conditions for the validation of its thermal performance and mechanical soundness. This paper introduces the concept of PFEEs and discusses the testing program results.
