Chemical Engineering April 2020 - 16

Coolbrook
that could include a demonstrator
for proof of concept in the case of
base chemicals. " They are working
very hard together, but it is too early
to talk about specifics, " says Lia Voermans,
director of Innovation Strategy,
Brightlands Chemelot Campus.
Already in 2018, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen,
Germany; www.basf.com)
had begun its own five-year research
project to develop the world's first
electrical heating concept for steam
crackers. When the concept was first
publicized at a press event in January
2019, Kiara Kochendörfer, the
project leader for clean high-temperature
processes, pointed out that the
switch from fossil-fuel-fired cracker
furnaces to the E-Furnace using renewable
energy (solar, wind, battery)
would cut CO2 emissions by 90%.
BASF is working together with partner
Linde Engineering (Munich, Germany;
www.linde-engineering.com).
Because the concept is new, the
researchers are " entering unknown
territory of high Ampere [current] and
low voltage, " explained Kochendörfer.
Among the challenges are metallurgical
- finding the right materials
for the cracker coils that can handle
operation at 1,000°C.
Meanwhile, progress continues on
the development of a completely new
cracker concept from Coolbrook Oy
(Helsinki, Finland; www.coolbrook.fi).
The patented RotoDynamic Reactor
(RDR) technology has the potential to
improve ethylene yields by 34% compared
to conventional furnace-based
naphtha crackers, according to Coolbrook
CEO Harri Johannesdahl.
RDR is a regenerative turbomachine
(Figure 3) consisting of three
axial blade rows (stator, rotor and diffuser)
and a toroidal vaneless space
that circumferentially connects the
blade passages, which allows the
regenerative heating of the working
fluid, explains Johannesdahl. The
fluid is accelerated in the stator, and
the mechanical energy is converted
to internal energy of the fluid by the
rotating blade row, thereby increasing
the temperature and pressure of
the fluid. Unlike conventional crackers,
which heat the fluid from outside
the furnace, the RDR is heated
from within the reactor. As a result,
16
FIGURE 3. Coolbrook's RotoDynamic Reactor has the potential to improve ethylene yields by 34%, compared
to furnace-cased naphtha crackers. The regenerative turbo machine (closeup, upper right) can be motor
driven using renewable electricity, thereby reducing CO2 emissions from the cracking process by 70%
the residence time inside the RDR is
just 0.02-0.04 s, which is about one
tenth of that achieved in conventional
crackers, says Johannesdahl.
In this short time, the high temperature
(over 900°C) and pressure (1-3
barg) reached in the RDR efficiently
pyrolyzes naphtha with a high ethylene
yield (over 43%) - 34% higher
than conventional crackers, he says.
The company recently completed
a two-year project (Chem. Eng., May
2017, p. 9), and is now investing €12
million to scale up the reactor from 90
kg/h (the R&D reactor) to 500 kg/h,
with startup planned for this fall. The
new plant, together with the company's
R&D hub, have now moved to
Brightlands Chemelot Campus.
The current RDR eReactor design
will be driven by an electric motor,
thus permitting electrification of the
cracking process, says Johannesdahl.
The yield benefit remains what
was reported in 2017, says Johannesdahl,
but now the CO2 emissions
from the cracking process are
reduced by 70% and energy consumption
is 21% less, he says.
" As Coolbrook's revolutionary RDR
technology has multiple benefits
compared to any known technology
in use or under development,
all the major petrochemical companies,
including 'Cracker of the Future'
consortium, have expressed
their interest on this technology, "
says Johannesdahl. " Since RDR can
be a breakthrough technology in the
battle against the CO2 emissions,
Coolbrook is working hard to get a
large cluster of different stakeholders
behind its technology to guarantee
as fast and efficient market entry as
possible, " he says.
Waste plastics as feedstock
" Various trials are planned to use recycled
plastic waste as cracker feedstock, "
says TechnipFMC's Middleton.
" The limitations on the extent to
which this can be achieved are mainly
associated with the logistics of reclaiming
recycled plastics and the energy
required for recycling by pyrolysis, "
he cautions. " Another issue that
is not yet fully developed is the range
of contaminants that may be present
in the recycled plastics, which can
have an adverse effect on cracker
product quality and catalyst life. "
" In Europe and SE Asia, the use
of such recycled feed is expected to
become more common in the next
few years, but the logistics of waste
collection is expected to mean that
this will only form a relatively small
proportion of cracker feedstock, "
says Middleton.
For example, as part of its ChemCycling
project, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen,
Germany; www.basf.com) is
already piloting the manufacturing of
some products based on chemically
recycled plastic waste (Chem. Eng.,
March 2019, pp. 14-18). BASF feeds
oil derived from plastic waste into its
Verbund production site. BASF gets
this feedstock for the pilot products
from the partner Recenso GmbH
(Remscheid, Germany; www.recenso.
eu). The first batch of this oil was fed
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Chemical Engineering April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering April 2020